Warren G. Harding was an American statesman who served as the 29th president of the United States from 1921 until his death in 1923.

Nicknamed "Winnie" as a small child, he was the eldest of eight children.

At the age of eighteen, he bought The Marion Star and built it into a successful newspaper. He remained involved in the Star throughout his political career, never ceding his financial interest in the paper until a few months before his death in August 1923.

When Harding joined the U.S. Senate, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and were led by President Wilson. As a junior senator in the minority, Harding received unimportant committee assignments, but carried out those duties assiduously.

He ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920 but was considered a long shot until the leading candidates failed to gain the necessary majority, and the convention deadlocked. Harding's support gradually grew until he was nominated on the tenth ballot.

He won in a landslide over Democrat James M. Cox and then-imprisoned Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs, becoming the first sitting senator to be elected president.

In Warren's first pronouncement as president, he ordered that the gates of the White House be opened to the public. The move was praised by the press, with an announcement that tourists could come to the property the following week. By the time the White House opened to the public, First Lady Florence Harding herself had offered to act as tour guide.

Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics. It involved Harding's Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, who was found to have leased public land to oil companies in exchange for gifts. He spent a little under a year in prison. "I have no trouble with my enemies," Harding once said. "But my damn friends ... they're the ones who keep me walking the floor nights."

Eugene V. Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times, including 1900 (earning 0.6% of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0%), 1908 (2.8%), 1912 (6.0%) and 1920 (3.4%), the last time from a prison cell as he had been arrested for speaking out against World War I. Debs had been sent to jail for 10 years, but Harding officially pardoned him after three years in 1921. Harding met with Debs at the White House after his pardon.

A Republican lawyer from New England who had previously served as governor of Massachusetts, Calvin Coolidge was elected the 29th vice president of the United States. He succeeded to the presidency upon Harding's sudden death in 1923.