I’ve got a weird thing for timelines. When I was in school, learning about history, I always felt like I was missing the context of what we were learning about. Where it fit in the big picture. Timelines are great for taking a step back and seeing something as part of a whole.
I’ve been working on this timeline of US Presidents off and on for a long time now and it’s not done yet, but it’s worth showing. A few things I wanted this timeline to show at a glance were:
- An overview of presidential terms, who’s served longest, shortest, etc.
- How many terms ended in deaths and/or assassinations.
- What presidents served during which wars and other notable periods (ie: Prohibition)
- How have the length of wars changed over time?
Here it is so far, still not quite there yet, but I welcome anyone’s feedback. (Click thru to view it full size as an SVG, on which you can zoom in and out with your browsers zoom controls.)
