Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnBorn 12 Feb 1809Lincoln announced the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, weeks before the midterm elections, knowing many Northern voters had backed a war for the Union, not for abolition. Republicans lost a number of House seats and governorships that November, and Democrats campaigned…0i
  2. 2Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanBorn 8 May 1884Truman made two deeply unpopular choices in four years. His 1948 executive order to desegregate the armed forces angered Southern Democrats so much that some walked out to run Strom Thurmond against him. In 1951 he sacked General Douglas MacArthur for publicly challenging the administration's Korea…0i
  3. 3Charles de GaulleCharles de GaulleBorn 22 Nov 1890Brought back to power in 1958 largely by those who wanted Algeria kept French, de Gaulle moved step by step towards Algerian self-determination and independence in 1962. Settlers and parts of the army felt betrayed; generals attempted a putsch in 1961 and the OAS terror group tried repeatedly to…0i
  4. 4Willy BrandtWilly BrandtBorn 18 Dec 1913Brandt's 1970 Warsaw Treaty effectively accepted the Oder-Neisse line, giving up claims to former German lands where millions of expellees had once lived. The expellee organisations and much of the opposition called it a surrender, and defections over it nearly brought down his government. His…0i
  5. 5Gerald FordGerald FordBorn 14 Jul 1913A month into his presidency, Ford granted Richard Nixon a full pardon for any crimes committed in office. His approval fell from about 71 to 50 per cent almost overnight, his press secretary resigned, and the decision is widely thought to have cost him the 1976 election. He argued that a trial…0i
  6. 6Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterBorn 1 Oct 1924Polls showed most Americans opposed giving up the Panama Canal, yet Carter pushed the 1977 treaties through the Senate with a single vote to spare, and several senators who backed them lost their seats. The canal passed to Panama in 1999 and has been run efficiently since, though the second Trump…0i
  7. 7Anwar SadatAnwar SadatBorn 25 Dec 1918Sadat's 1977 visit to Jerusalem and the 1979 peace treaty with Israel got Egypt the Sinai back but cost it its place in the Arab League, which suspended Egypt for a decade, and made him a target at home. He was assassinated by Islamist army officers in 1981. The treaty has held for more than forty…0i
  8. 8Indira GandhiIndira GandhiBorn 19 Nov 1917The cautionary entry. In 1975, after a court voided her election, Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency: elections were suspended, opponents jailed, the press censored and a forced sterilisation drive carried out. When she called elections in 1977, voters threw her out in a landslide. The…0i
  9. 9Roger DouglasRoger DouglasBorn 5 Dec 1937As finance minister in New Zealand's 1984 Labour government, Douglas floated the dollar, ended farm subsidies, corporatised and sold state enterprises and introduced a goods and services tax, none of which Labour voters had been promised. The reforms are credited with ending a sclerotic, heavily…0i
  10. 10Margaret ThatcherMargaret ThatcherBorn 13 Oct 1925Thatcher took many unpopular decisions, but the Community Charge is the clearest case where unpopularity was a sound verdict. The flat-rate poll tax, introduced in Scotland in 1989 and England and Wales in 1990, charged a duke and a dustman the same, prompted mass non-payment and a riot in…0i