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In November of 1853, Martin Van Buren became the first former President of the United States to meet with a Pope, Pius IX. Few details of the visit are contained in his, biographies, but according to biographer John Niven, the Pontiff treated Van Buren like a head of state. Niven also mentions that Van Buren had been given a letter of introduction to the Holy Father from New York's Archbishop John Hughes.

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On June 15, 1849 (177 years ago today), James Knox Polk, the 11th President of the United States, died at his home, Polk Place, in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 53. Despite being a one term President, he has consistently been ranked as one of the greatest presidents because of his ability to set an agenda and achieve all of it, though at least one Polk historian disputes the accuracy of this notion.

Every year when I recall Polk's legacy, I always think of the words from the last verse of the song "James K. Polk" by the alternative group They Might Be Giants:
In four short years he met his every goal
He seized the whole southwest from Mexico
Made sure the tariffs fell
And made the English sell the Oregon territory
He built an independent treasury
Having done all this he sought no second term
But precious few have mourned the passing of
Mister James K. Polk, our eleventh president
Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump

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On May 24, 2017, President Donald Trump met with Pope Francis. The President had an audience with the Pope at the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. The visit took place during his first term as President. 

 The topics of the meeting were expected to be world peace, the environment and immigration. It was expected that the meeting would not be the friendliest because just a year earlier, the Pope had made comments suggesting that Trump "is not Christian" because of his plan to build a U.S-Mexico border wall.

Their encounter lasted about 30 minutes. President Trump introduced first lady Melania Trump, along with his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. "At the end of the audience, the pope gave Trump copies of his writings," NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome, including his encyclical on climate change. This was a subject on which the two leaders had very different opinions.

The two also  exchanged several gifts: Trump gave Francis books by Martin Luther King Jr., and the Pontiff  gave Trump an emblem of an olive tree, representing the need to pursue peace, to which the President replied, "We can use peace." 

As the meeting ended and the two shook hands in farewell, Trump told the Pontiff, "I won't forget what you said," adding that the pope should call on him for help. Later, President Trump met with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. 

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Today President Donald John Trump becomes the second octogenarian to serve as President of the United States as he celebrates his 80th birthday. President Trump was born on June 14, 1946 in Queen's New York. His years on this planet have been eventful and fast-paced, and that is unlikely to change for the 45th/47th President. Before entering politics, Trump was a businessman and television personality. He is controversial and colorful, with an appeal to those who dislike the notion of career politicians as usual, those who dislike political correctness and those who are looking for someone to shake things up in Washington. Conversely, he is intensely disliked by those on the left of the political spectrum and by those who perceive him to be too impulsive. His presidencies have increased a trend of polarization that has been present since at least the latter half of the Clinton Presidency.

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Pat Robertson was an televangelist who moved his pulpit on to the political stage and ran for President in 1988. Robertson presented a strong conservative Christian ideology and was known for his involvement in Republican Party politics. He was associated with the Charismatic movement within Protestant evangelicalism. He served as head of Regent University and of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).

Robertson's career spanned over five decades. He was also a best-selling author and the host of The 700 Club, a Christian News and TV program broadcast live weekdays on Freeform (formerly ABC Family) from CBN studios, as well as on channels throughout the United States, and on CBN network affiliates worldwide. Robertson retired from The 700 Club in October 2021.

In 1982, he served on the Victims of Crime Task Force for U.S. President Ronald Reagan. In Virginia, he served on the Board of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership and on the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors. 

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Joseph Smith Jr. was an American religious and political leader, famous as the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. At the age of 24, he published the Book of Mormon, and he would attracted tens of thousands of followers to his new religion by the time of his death. The religious movement he founded is followed by millions of people today and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is the largest modern organized religion that follows his teachings. But in addition to being a religious leader, Smith was also a Presidential candidate in 1844.

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Most rankings of which President was best or worst (especially those where the ones doing the ranking put aside any partisan loyalty) seem to come to the same conclusion: James Buchanan finishes dead last in the rankings. He dithered and did nothing as states purported to leave the union, even going so far as to enable those states to raid federal arsenals of weapons. He put his thumb on the scales of justice when the Supreme Court was considering the question of the legality of slavery and generally kowtowed to the slaveholding interests in Congress. It was also on his watch that the United States went to war with another segment of its own population, Mormon settlers, in what became known as the "Utah War" and also sometimes pejoratively as "Buchanan's Blunder."

Mormons began settling in what is now Utah (then part of the province of Alta California in the Centralist Republic of Mexico) in the summer of 1847. Their exodus followed a series of severe conflicts with neighboring communities in Missouri and Illinois in 1844. Those conflicts had resulted in the death of their leader, Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.

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Why did the United States launch a military assault on the tiny island of Grenada in 1983? Was it macho muscle flexing, a larger more powerful nation bullying a smaller one, or was there some more noble purpose behind this conflict?

Matthew Frakes answers those and many other questions about this fascinating but often forgotten military operation in his new book Grenada 1983: American Resurgence Toward the End of the Cold War. 

It was the third year of Ronald Reagan's presidency, and Reagan had been warning of the dangers of the spread of communism in his rhetoric. But as the Soviet Union and Cuba took advantage of political instability in the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, setting the state for another potential Cuban missile crisis, Reagan took the opportunity to show that he meant what he was preaching and that there was action behind his words.

Before reading this book, like many people, I would have had trouble finding Grenada on a map. Matthew Frakes covers all the bases in explaining the roots of this conflict, how the decision to launch the first US military action on foreign soil since Vietnam came about, and he provides an excellent account of the military operation that restored democracy to this tiny nation, and rescued the island's Governor-General as well as over 500 American medical students who were potential hostages in the aftermath, averting a repeat of what had occurred in Iran just three years previously.

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On June 4, 2004, President George W. Bush met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, and the Pope wasn't very happy with the President. The subject of the Pope's disliking was the war in Iraq that the President had just undertaken. The Pontiff didn't couch his words with the President in the room.

With President Bush at his side, Pope John Paul II talked about his unhappiness over the invasion of Iraq and he urged the president to hasten the restoration of sovereignty to the Iraqi people. The two world leaders had a 15-minute private meeting. Later, when talking with reporters, the Pope mixed praise for the United States with a diplomatically worded but unmistakable expression of displeasure with the war and its aftermath. He said that he welcomed the establishment of an interim Iraqi government, but said it was ''a moment of great concern'' for the Middle East and he called on the United States to work quickly toward a new United Nations resolution.

Pope John Paul II said, ''It is the evident desire of everyone that this situation now be normalized as quickly as possible with the active participation of the international community and, in particular, the United Nations organization, in order to ensure a speedy return of Iraq's sovereignty, in conditions of security for all its people.'' 

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The first time that a sitting US President and a Pope met was in 1919 when Woodrow Wilson met Pope Benedict XV. There would not be another such meeting until forty years later when President Dwight Eisenhower met with Pope John XXIII in Rome on December 6. 1959.

The meeting was a jovial one. Historians present recall a lot of smiling and laughter. Present at the meeting, in addition to the two world leaders, were Cardinal Tardini. Monsignor Samore, and Lt. Col. Vernon Walters, a military aide and White House Historian, as well as the President's son John and John's wife Barbara. The President expressed how pleased and honored he was to meet the Pope, stating that one of the purposes of his trip was to meet with other leaders of the free world at a time when communism was spreading in many parts of the world. The President said that if anything could be done to advance the cause of peace, he would feel that his trip was worthwhile.

On the trip Eisenhower was also visiting a number of countries in the Middle East. He told the Pope that his only desire was for peace and friendship in liberty. He said that freedom could exist only where there was respect for the spiritual values and a belief in Almighty God, which he called the basis of good government.