Biography of James Knox Polk


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Polk, James Knox. Born in 1795. Eleventh president of the United States. Was speaker of the house of representatives (1835-39), and governor of Tennessee (1839-41), and was elected as a Democrat to the presidency in 1844. He obtained the annexation of Texas and the cession of Upper California and New Mexico by Mexico, as well as the settlement of the Oregon boundary. Died 1849.