-Roosevelt was elected Vice President in 1900, under President William McKinley's second administration, largely because of pressure from business interests to remove him from influential positions. Following the assassination of President McKinley in September 1901, Roosevelt took over as US President on September 14, 1901. This made him the youngest US President ever, barely 43 years old. As an effective and enterprising leader during the "progressive" era, he sought to steer the party and the country towards a strengthened central power, increased regulations and a more influential, nationalist foreign policy. Roosevelt's meddling in the Russian-Japanese War gave him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906, which strengthened his reputation. Roosevelt was re-elected in the presidential election of 1904 with a strong majority. During his time as President of the United States, he legislated against trusts, introduced widespread federal consumer law, and introduced strong regulations for the exploitation of the country's natural resources. His goal was to strengthen the middle class and fight business interests with his so-called Square Deal, which is considered to have been a model for Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal thirty years later.
-In 1909, Taft became US president since Theodore Roosevelt declined to stand for re-election and appointed his friend Taft as Republican presidential candidate. Taft, however, hesitated for a long time because he did not really want to become president without a chief judge in the Supreme Court, but eventually he was persuaded.
However, during Taft's presidency, some crucial events occurred in US history. In 1912, two states were adopted in the Union, Arizona and New Mexico, and the same year Taft also passed in Congress a decision to consolidate the Panama Canal Zone.
At the 1912 presidential election, Taft ran for re-election, although he did not really want to. However, Taft lost by 3,484,000 votes against the Democrats' counterpart Woodrow Wilson's 6,290,000 votes. The fact that he lost so much was mainly due to the split of the Republican votes, as Theodore Roosevelt no longer supported Taft because of disagreements on the customs protection policy and himself ran for office as president of the newly formed Progressive Party.
