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

Tags: A Look Back in Politics