Richard Nixon’s upbringing was marked by evangelical Quaker observances, such as refraining from drinking alcohol, dancing and swearing. | Charles Tasnadi/AP Photo This Day in Politics Richard Nixon born in Yorba Linda, Calif., Jan. 9, 1913

On this day in 1913, Richard M. Nixon, the nation’s 37th president and the sole president ever to resign from office was born in Yorba Linda, Calif., in a house that his father had built. His presidency lasted from 1969 to 1974. He had previously served as Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president from 1953 to 1961, and prior to that as a representative and later a senator from California.

Nixon’s upbringing was marked by evangelical Quaker observances, such as refraining from drinking alcohol, dancing and swearing. While poverty marked his boyhood, he was fond of quoting a saying of Eisenhower: “We were poor, but the glory of it was we didn’t know it.”


Nixon was offered a scholarship to Harvard, but his brother’s illness meant that he was needed at the family store. He remained in his hometown and attended Whittier College. After graduating from Whittier in 1934, Nixon received a full scholarship to attend Duke University School of Law.

He and his wife, Pat, moved to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government. He subsequently served on active duty in the U.S. Navy Reserve during World War II. He was elected to the House in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to his Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, and lost a race for the California governorship to Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr. in 1962.

It was widely believed at the time that his political career had ended, However, in 1968, he ran for the presidency again and was elected, defeating Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

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His 1972 visit to China created a path for diplomatic relations between the two nations; he also negotiated an Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union in the same year. He was reelected in one of the largest electoral landslides in U.S. history in 1972 when he defeated Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.).

Nixon ended American involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973. By late that year, however, the Watergate scandal that stained his presidency had escalated, costing him much of his political support. On Aug. 9, 1974, he resigned while facing almost certain removal from office. Tagged as an unindicted co-conspirator in a host of Watergate crimes, he escaped possible prosecution when Gerald Ford, his successor, pardoned him.

In 20 years of retirement, Nixon wrote nine books and burnished his image as an elder statesman. He suffered a stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81. Five U.S. presidents (including then-incumbent Bill Clinton) and their wives attended his funeral in Yorba Linda.

When told that most Americans, even at the end of his career, did not feel they knew him, Nixon replied, “Yeah, it’s true. And it’s not necessary for them to know.”

SOURCE: “This Day in Presidential History,” by Paul Brandus (2018)

