James K. Polk

James Knox Polk, born November 2, 1795, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and died June 15, 1849, served as the eleventh President of the United States from 1845 to 1849. Having pledged to serve only a single term, he pursued an expansionist agenda under the banner of Manifest Destiny: his administration negotiated the 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain, fixing the Pacific Northwest boundary at the 49th parallel, and led the country through the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848, which ended with Mexico ceding a vast territory covering most of the present-day American Southwest and California. He kept his pledge not to seek reelection and died just three months after leaving office.