The presidency of Richard Nixon began on January 20, 1969, when he was inaugurated, and ended on August 9, 1974, when he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office, the first U.S. president ever to do so. He was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford, who had become vice president nine months earlier, following Spiro Agnew's resignation from office. A Republican, Nixon took office after the 1968 presidential election, in which he defeated Hubert Humphrey, the then–incumbent Vice President. Four years later, in 1972, Nixon won reelection in a landslide victory over George McGovern. Overall, he won 60.7% of the popular vote, and 520 of 538 electoral votes.
Nixon, the 37th United States president, succeeded Lyndon B. Johnson, who had launched the Great Society, a set of domestic programs financed and run by the federal government. In contrast, Nixon advocated a "New Federalism" domestic program model, one in which certain powers would devolve back to the states. The creation of the EPA, passage of the Endangered Species Act, and the integration of Southern public schools happened during his presidency, as did the end of military draft and the Apollo program, which successfully landed Americans on the Moon.