The State of the Union address was first delivered in New York City

The evolution of the State of the Union speech

The US State of the Union speech is an annual event proposed by the country's Constitution and scheduled by its first president. President George Washington was the first to deliver such a speech, by nature of his office, limiting the inaugural "Annual Message" to 1,100 words and 10 minutes. Just 10 years later, the country's second president, John Adams, changed the nascent tradition, instead offering a written statement.

Thomas Jefferson delivered his 1801 State of the Union address in writing

In 1801, President Jefferson ended in-person State of the Union addresses, feeling they were too monarchial, and sent written messages instead—a practice that lasted until 1913. His first message was written and sent via his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, who later led the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to use the term 'State of the Union'

In 1934, President Roosevelt became the first president to formally call the annual address the "State of the Union," replacing the older title "Annual Message to Congress" and using the language from the Constitution.

Woodrow Wilson revived the in-person State of the Union in 1913

President Wilson became the first president since John Adams to deliver the State of the Union in person. He is credited with transforming the speech from a routine update into a public tool for advancing the president's legislative agenda.

Calvin Coolidge brought the State of the Union to the radio age

On Dec. 6, 1923, President Coolidge delivered his Annual Message from the US House chamber as millions listened by radio—crowds gathered outside with amplifiers—making it the first nationally broadcast address and the only in-person State of the Union of his presidency.

Television transformed the State of the Union, beginning with Harry Truman

In 1947, President Truman delivered the first televised State of the Union address, marking the address's shift into the visual age and expanding the president's reach beyond radio to a national TV audience.

See a visual history of the State of the Union

This gallery offers a visual archive of the State of the Union, featuring photographs from each president's address, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Explore decades of presidential moments, settings, and historical context tied to the annual speech.

George W. Bush delivered the first State of the Union livestreamed online

In 2002, George W. Bush became the first president to livestream the State of the Union, using the address to label Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an "axis of evil," shaping US strategy during the War on Terror.

America’s founding documents were once housed in other government buildings

Today, the Constitution and Declaration are displayed at the National Archives. Still, for more than a century, they were kept by other federal institutions—including the State Department and the Library of Congress—before gaining a permanent home in the 1930s.

In a letter, George Washington assured a Jewish congregation that the new government gives 'to bigotry no sanction'

In 1790, President Washington visited Newport's Touro Synagogue and received a welcoming letter from its warden. Washington's reply—considered his clearest statement on religious tolerance—assured the congregation that under the new government, religious freedom would be protected as a fundamental right.

The Compromise of 1790 broke a deadlock over debt and the national capital

In 1790, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson reached an agreement that allowed Congress to assume the states' war debts and to approve a permanent national capital on the Potomac River.

In 1792, Congress established the first national mint to produce all the coins in the US

At the same time, the US also started producing the dollar, its first official currency. The US Mint has since issued coins throughout the country.

George Washington's birthday was a federal holiday until it was moved to the third Monday in February in 1968

Washington's February 22 birthday became a federal holiday in 1879. A 1968 law moved it to the third Monday in February, and decades of advertising popularized the unofficial name "Presidents' Day," which the federal government never formally adopted.

The New York Stock Exchange was started in 1792

When it first opened, traders would meet both outside on the street and in coffee shops to do business. Today, the NYSE is known as one of the most important financial institutions in the world.

Madison was America's first president during a formally declared war

During James Madison's presidency, Congress formally declared war on Britain in 1812 over its practice of seizing American sailors, trade restrictions, and repeated violations of US sovereignty—marking the first time a sitting American president led the nation through a declared war.

John and Abigail Adams were the first to live in the White House, which was largely unfinished

President John Adams moved into the unfinished White House on Nov. 1, 1800, followed by first lady Abigail Adams, who used the East Room to dry laundry. The building lacked heat and plaster, with construction continuing for months.

New York was a hotbed of early revolutionary activity

In the decade before independence, New York City saw Stamp Act riots, liberty pole confrontations, the 1770 Battle of Golden Hill, and defiance of the Quartering Act, and organized efforts to block and destroy taxed British tea.

6 union history facts

Founded in 1794, the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (who were leather workers and cobblers) is considered to be the first union in the United States.

See the list of monarchs who have addressed a joint session of the US Congress

Only 11 monarchs have ever addressed a joint meeting of Congress, beginning with Hawaii's King Kalakaua in 1874. King Charles III of the United Kingdom became the most recent in April 2026.

An early version of the musical 'Hamilton' debuted at the White House

Years before the musical "Hamilton" reached Broadway, Lin-Manuel Miranda performed an early draft of the opening song at the White House during a 2009 poetry event attended by President Obama.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address became one of the most famous speeches in American history

Delivered by Lincoln on Nov. 19, 1863, at the dedication of a national cemetery, the 272-word Gettysburg Address reframed the war as a struggle for equality. The speech would be cited as a moral touchstone for later movements such as women's suffrage and civil rights.

The UN in NYC is an international zone belonging to all member-states

The four primary buildings are located on an 18-acre site on the East Side of Manhattan. The complex has its own postal administration, fire department, and security forces.

Mass transit in America began with horse-drawn omnibuses in New York City in 1827

The omnibus, a large horse-drawn stagecoach that ran a fixed route and carried a dozen riders at an affordable fare, was different from a private carriage because it carried everyone, not just the wealthy.

Lombardi's was the first documented pizza restaurant in the US

The New York establishment opened in the early 1900s and was a cornerstone of Manhattan's SoHo. At one point, it was open 23 hours a day, allowing laborers of the predominantly Italian-American community to stop by for pies before or after work.

A Thanksgiving meal was celebrated in Virginia in 1619

Although the Pilgrims' meal with the Wampanoag is often cited as "the first Thanksgiving," historians note a meal intended to mark "a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god" was celebrated by early settlers three years earlier. President John F. Kennedy acknowledged the day in his 1963 Thanksgiving proclamation.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.