Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren, born December 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, New York, and died July 24, 1862, served as the eighth President of the United States from 1837 to 1841, the first president born a citizen of the United States rather than a British subject. A principal organizer of the Democratic Party's national political machine, he served as Andrew Jackson's Vice President before winning the presidency in his own right. His single term was dominated by the Panic of 1837, a severe and prolonged economic depression that badly damaged his popularity, and he lost his 1840 reelection bid to William Henry Harrison.