DemDaily: Presidential Firsts!
May 27, 2016
President Obama made a historic visit this week to Hiroshima, Japan, the site of the world's first atomic bomb 71 years ago. Calling for an end to "senseless wars" and a "world without nuclear weapons,"
Obama became the first sitting president to ever visit the city.
His peacekeeping mission comes on the heels of his equally historic visit to Cuba, following the lift of the over 50-year embargo on US-Cuban trade, originally instituted in 1962 under President Kennedy.The Diplomat-in-Chief was the first to visit the neighboring country since Calvin Coolidge in 1928.
To celebrate these "presidential firsts" we cracked open the history books to some of the most notable inaugural visits by a US Presidents:
Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to make an international trip while in office when he went to Panama in 1906, followed by the first European tour by Woodrow Wilson in 1918 in preparation for the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year for his efforts to promote peace in the European theater.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first Commander-in-Chief to travel to the Soviet Union when he attended the famous Yalta Conference in Crimea in 1945.
Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1959 peace mission to India made him the first US President to visit the continent of Asia. His 1952 trip to visit a South Korean combat zone was only as President-elect.
Richard Nixon's 1972 trip to the People's Republic of China marked the first for a President, and to a country not diplomatically recognized by the United States.
Japan first hosted a president in 1974 with Gerald Ford, 29 years after the Japanese surrendered in WWII. Eisenhower's planned 1960 trip was cancelled due to violent, anti-American protests.
President Bill Clinton's 1998 historic meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PLO Chair Yasser Arafat was the first for the West Bank.
President Clinton was the most traveled US President, having visited 75 countries during his tenure.
Our next President?
The only first we know now - if they are elected:
- Hillary Clinton would be the first woman elected president.
- Bernie Sanders would be both the first socialist and first Jewish president.
- Donald Trump would be the first with no formal government experience (military, appointed, or elected). We'll leave it at that.
Have a great holiday weekend!
DemList
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Kimberly Scott
Publisher
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