Looking Back on 2024
2024 was an eventful year, with a Presidential election, which turned out to be one of the most unique in history. Not only did the nominated candidate, the incumbent President, withdraw his name from nomination well into the campaign (and after he had been formally nominated by his party), but for the second time in history one of the two major parties ran a female candidate at the top of the ticket, and for the second time in history, a candidate won a second non-consecutive term as President.
We chronicled much of the election campaign, but as our focus in this community is on history, not politics, we also covered many other subjects. Here is a look back on the subjects we considered in 2024:
JANUARY: After brining in the new year with a wish for civility and kindness, we looked at past presidential elections in which the sitting incumbent president sought re-election, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
FEBRUARY: After completing our series on Presidential Elections with Incumbents, we celebrated Black History Month with a look at some of the more memorable events in Presidential History involving African-Americans, and we also continued our tradition of our annual Presidents Day Quiz.
MARCH: In March we began a series looking at the best biographies and history books written about each President, and on March 26th this community celebrated its 14th birthday.
APRIL: In April we continued our series on Presidential biographies and histories, and we also looked at some of the candidates running for President in 2024 and some of the major issues in the campaign.
MAY: Our series for May was entitled "Presidential Affairs" in which we looked back at some of history's events dubbed as "affairs," some of which were scandalous, and some of which were international incidents.
JUNE: As political polarization ran rampant in Washington, we looked back in history at how this is not a new phenomenon and how issues have polarized parties and sections of the country throughout presidential history, whether the issue was relations with Great Britain and France, slavery, states' rights, or foreign wars.
JULY: At the start of the month it looked as if either Joe Biden or Donald Trump might soon be going into retirement, so it seemed timely to look at how a number of former Presidents spent their post-presidential years, in our series called Presidents in Retirement.
AUGUST: August is typically a month of "summer reruns," when we repost articles previously posted in this community, and this year was no exception, as we revisited subjects from UFOs buzzing the Capital building in 1952, to a Vice-President's trial for conspiracy, a President who secretly played professional baseball, and a President who joined a volunteer fire brigade to fight a fire at the Library of Congress.
SEPTEMBER: With the Presidential election campaign in the homestretch and the conventions over, we chronicled what had happened so far in our series entitled "The Making of the President 2024." What a campaign it was, with a nominated candidate dropping out, an assassination attempt on another candidate, a third party candidate dropping out and endorsing a rival, allegations of Haitians eating cats, a pop singer's coveted endorsement, and a look at a number of swing states that would decide it all.
OCTOBER: Past presidential elections contained last minute events known as "October Surprises," and we looked at some of those, wondering if the 2024 campaign would have one. We also continued our Making of the President 2024 series with a look at how the race had tightened up and at some of the major last-minute rallies.
NOVEMBER: As the election finally arrived, we looked back on some of the closest elections in Presidential history, we looked at the results of this election, and we looked at some of the past transition periods in Presidential history, wondering how this transition would proceed.
DECEMBER: We concluded the year with a look at some of President-elect Trump's nominees for his new cabinet, before transitioning into the Christmas spirit, as we revisited some past presidential Christmas doings. We concluded the year with a look at the books we had read and reviewed in 2024 and those we look forward to in 2025.
It's amazing how fast the year passes. It seems like only yesterday that we were anticipating the end of a campaign that seemed to have lasted forever. And now we anticipate what the new year will bring. For this community it will bring new books to review, new topics to contemplate, and new reminders of how history repeats itself, especially in Presidential politics and leadership.
It's time to ring out the old year and ring in the new. May 2025 bring everyone happiness, prosperity, good health, safety and security, and may it be a year in which we all practice kindness, civility and tolerance with open minds and open hearts.