Who was the first president of the United States?

[Whickerman]

Why are the seven US presidents prior to Washington not recognised as such by history?

[kempie]

The title and position of President of the United States includes only those persons who were sworn into office as president following the ratification of the United States Constitution, which took effect in 1789. American leaders before this ratification are known as President of the Continental Congress.

[jno]

if these are the people you mean, there seem to be 16 of them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_ Continental_Congress#Relationship_to_the_US_Pr esidency

I see some brandy is now being labelled '44' in the USA to try to tie it in with Obama, the 44th president. I wonder if anyone marked Peyton Randolph's job by marketing anything labelled 'minus 16'.

[Whickerman]

thanks guys. I don't know a helluva lot about early US history and came across the early 'presidents' when looking into why Obama is #44 (George W was 43, but I was trying to find out why not 43 and 44 as he served 2 terms)

[jno]

if you serve two terms you're still only one president. (Roosevelt died in his fourth term, but they restricted it to a maximum of two after that.) The exception is Cleveland, who served two terms that weren't one after the other, so he's two presidents.