The news that President Obama will address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday -- presumably to push for a change in health-care policy -- made us think back to other such addresses.

NPR crack librarian Barbara Van Woerkom has assembled a list of them going back to Woodrow Wilson in 1913.

The list:

April 8, 1913 -- Woodrow Wilson (tariff reform)
June 23, 1913 -- Wilson (banking system)
August 27, 1913 -- Wilson (Mexican affairs)
January 20, 1914 -- Wilson (trusts and monopolies)
March 5, 1914 -- Wilson (Panama Canal tolls)
April 20, 1914 -- Wilson (the Tampico Incident)
September 4, 1914 -- Wilson ("Appeal for Additional Revenue")
April 19, 1916 -- Wilson (German violations of international law)
August 29, 1916 -- Wilson (the demands of railway employees)
February 3, 1917 -- Wilson (severance of diplomatic relations with Germany)
February 26, 1917 -- Wilson ("Request for Authority")
April 2, 1917 -- Wilson (requesting a declaration of war against Germany)
January 4, 1918 -- Wilson (government administration of railways)
January 8, 1918 -- Wilson (conditions of peace)

February 22, 1932 -- Herbert Hoover (opening the celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of George Washington)

December 8, 1941 -- Franklin D. Roosevelt (requesting a declaration of war with Japan)
March 1, 1945 -- FDR (Yalta Conference)

April 16, 1945 -- Harry Truman (following the death of FDR)
October 23, 1945 -- Truman (universal mlitary training)
March 12, 1947 -- Truman (Greece/Turkey, The Truman Doctrine)
March 17, 1948 -- Truman (threat to the freedom of Europe)
April 19, 1948 -- Truman (50th anniversary of Cuban independence)
July 27, 1948 -- Truman

February 24, 1960 -- Dwight Eisenhower

May 25, 1961 -- John F. Kennedy (urgent national needs)

November 27, 1963 -- Lyndon B. Johnson (following the assssination of President Kennedy)
March 15, 1965 -- LBJ ("The American Promise")

June 1, 1972 -- Richard Nixon (following his trip from Austria, the Soviet Union, Iran and Poland)

August 12, 1974 -- Gerald Ford (following the resignation of President Nixon)
October 8, 1974 -- Ford (economy)
April 10, 1975 -- Ford (foreign policy)

April 20, 1977 -- Jimmy Carter (national energy plan)
September 18, 1978 -- Carter (Camp David meeting on Israel/Egypt)
June 18, 1979 -- Carter (Vienna summit meeting)

February 18, 1981 -- Ronald Reagan ("Program for Economic Recovery")
April 28, 1981 -- Reagan ("Program for Economic Recovery")
April 27, 1983 -- Reagan (Central America)
November 21, 1985 -- Reagan (Soviet-U.S. summit meeting in Geneva)

February 9, 1989 -- George Bush ("administration goals")
September 11, 1990 -- Bush (Persian Gulf crisis/federal budget deficit)
March 6, 1991 -- Bush (end of Persian Gulf war)

February 17, 1993 -- Bill Clinton ("administration goals")
September 22, 1993 -- Clinton (health care)

February 27, 2001 -- George W. Bush ("administration goals")
September 20, 2001 -- Bush (response to Sept. 11 attacks)

February 24, 2009 -- Barack Obama

categories: A Historical Look Back

4:22 - September 2, 2009

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