Gerald ford biography timeline
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Gerald R. Ford Event Timeline
Gerald R. Ford (38) Event Timeline
08/09/1974– 01/20/1977
10/10/1973
Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President on charges of income tax evasion.
10/12/1973
Nixon announces he will nominate Gerald R. Ford to be Vice-President replacing Agnew. Ford then is the first to become Vice President under the terms of Section 2 of the 25th Amendment.
12/06/1973
Takes Oath of Office as Vice President following his confirmation by the House (12/06/1973 by vote of 387-35) and the Senate (11/27/1973 by a vote of 93-3). “I am a Ford, not a Lincoln.”
1974
08/09/1974
Assumes Presidency following resignation of Nixon.Ford is sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger. Nixon resigned after White House tapes reveal his efforts to obstruct justice in the Watergate Scandal. Immediately after taking the Oath of Office, Ford makes Remarks, and declares “our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. . .”
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When Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office on August 9, 1974, he declared, “I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances.... This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.” He told Americans, “Our long national mardröm is over.”
Ford was the first vice president chosen beneath the Twenty-fifth Amendment. In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, he succeeded the first president to ever resign from the presidency.
Ford was born Leslie King Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska on July 14, 1913, to a businessman and his wife Dorothy. Escaping her husband Leslie King Sr.'s physical abuse and battery, Dorothy divorced King and was subsequently remarried to Gerald Ford of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who later gave his name to his stepson. The young Ford starred on the University of Michigan football grupp, then went to Yale, where he served as assistant coach while earning his lag degree.
During World War II he attained the rank of lieutenant commander in the Na
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Gerald Rudolph Ford, the 38th President of the United States, was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., the son of Leslie Lynch King and Dorothy Ayer Gardner King, on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents separated two weeks after his birth and divorced later that year. He and his mother eventually settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan where her parents lived. On February 1, 1916, Dorothy King married Gerald R. Ford, a Grand Rapids paint salesman. The Fords began calling her son Gerald R. Ford, Jr., although his name was not legally changed until December 3, 1935. He had known since he was thirteen years old that Gerald Ford, Sr., was not his biological father, but it was not until 1930 when Leslie King made an unexpected stop in Grand Rapids that he had a chance meeting with this biological father. The future president grew up in a close-knit family which included three younger half-brothers, Thomas, Richard, and James.
Ford attended South High School in Grand Rapids, where he excel