(b. August 27, 1908; d. January 22, 1973) Thirty-sixth president of the United States (1963–1969).

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the son of a Texas legislator and a proponent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1937 and to the U.S. Senate in 1949. He served as Senate majority leader from 1955 to 1961 and as vice president to John F. Kennedy from 1961 to 1963, becoming president after Kennedy's assassination. Although Johnson is noted for his Great Society domestic programs, including Medicare, the expansion of civil and voting rights, and a "war" against poverty, his legacy has been defined by his role in escalating the Vietnam War. Johnson's performance as a wartime president between 1963 and 1968 has generally received bad reviews. Critics charge that, in escalating the conflict, he both misled the American people and mismanaged the fighting itself. His close supervision of the bombing campaign in...