There are only three impeached presidents in United States history, meaning only three presidents have been charged by the House of Representatives with committing "high crimes and misdemeanors." Those presidents are Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump.

To date, there has not been a president removed from office using the impeachment process. Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald J. Trump were not convicted by the Senate.

There is only one other mechanism set forth in the U.S. Constitution, aside from conviction on impeachment charges, that allows for the removal of a failing president. It is outlined in the 25th Amendment, which contains provisions for the forceful removal of a president who has become physically unable to serve.

As with the impeachment process, the 25th Amendment has never been used to remove a president from office.

1:33 Watch Now: A Brief History of Impeached Presidents

Rarely Invoked

The forceful removal of a president is not a topic that is taken lightly among voters and members of Congress, though the highly partisan atmosphere has made it more common for staunch opponents of a president to circulate rumors about impeachment.

In fact, the three most recent presidents each endured suggestions from certain members of Congress that they should be impeached: George W. Bush for his handling of the Iraq War, Barack Obama for his administration's handling of Benghazi and other scandals, and Donald Trump, whose erratic behavior grew into a major concern among some members of Congress.

The House in 2019 opened an impeachment inquiry into Trump's conversation with Ukraine's president, in which he was accused of tying military aid to political information on former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Trump, while admitting to asking Ukraine to look into Hunter Biden's dealings on a Ukrainian gas company's board, denied there was any quid pro quo. On December 18, 2019, the House voted on two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Both charges passed largely along party lines in the Democrat-controlled House.

Still, serious discussions of impeaching a president have occurred rarely in our nation's history because of the damage they can cause to the republic.

Until Trump's impeachment, many Americans alive today could name only one impeached president, William Jefferson Clinton. This is because of the salacious nature of the Monica Lewinsky affair and because of how quickly and thoroughly the details spread across the internet as it became commercially accessible for the first time.

But the first impeachment came more than a century earlier, as our political leaders were trying to pull the nation together after the Civil War, long before Clinton faced charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in 1998.

List of Impeached Presidents

Here's a look at the presidents who were impeached before Trump, plus a couple who came very close to being impeached.