Like a statistically noticeable chunk of Americans, my wife and I saw Hamilton this past weekend… which naturally led to us to look up the historical details of all the historical figures.
One question that popped up –and really, I’m surprised this wasn’t touched on in any my history classes– was who was “in charge” of the United States before George Washington? I mean, we have that whole “Articles of Confederation” period where someone was in charge in some official capacity, right?
It turns out there were presidents beforehand, but their duties and powers weren’t at all comparable to what we associate with American presidents beginning with George Washington. In this, all my history teachers most definitely covered that “lack of strong, central government.”
Want to know more nitty-gritty details? Writer and newspaper columnist J.J. McCullough has a good summary of some of these early presidents and evidently some people can get snotty about it.
After that, feel free to go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole and learn more all about ’em.