18th century 1776 – George Clinton, Continental Congressman (July 8), resigned to fight in the American Revolutionary War. 1780 – Elbridge Gerry, Continental Congressman (February 19) 1793 – Thomas Jefferson, United States Secretary of State (December 31), after becoming disillusioned with the Washington administration. 1795 – John Jay, Chief Justice of the United States (June 29), to take office as Governor of New York. 1800 – Oliver Ellsworth, Chief Justice of the United States (September 30), after personal unpopularity and illness while negotiating the Convention of 1800
19th century 1817 – Daniel D. Tompkins, Governor of New York (February 24), to become Vice President of the United States after the 1816 presidential election. 1829 – Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York (March 12), to become U.S. Secretary of State under President Andrew Jackson. 1832 – Robert Y. Hayne, United States Senator (December 13), resigned to become Governor of South Carolina. 1832 – John C. Calhoun, Vice President of the United States (December 28), to replace Robert Hayne in the U.S. Senate during the Nullification crisis. 1848 – Francis R. Shunk, Governor of Pennsylvania (July 9), after contracting tuberculosis. 1849 – Millard Fillmore, New York State Comptroller (February 20), to become Vice President of the United States. 1851 – Peter Hardeman Burnett, Governor of California (January 9) 1852 – William R. King, United States Senator of Alabama (December 20), to take office as Vice President of the United States. 1857 – Hannibal Hamlin, Governor of Maine (February 25) 1861 – Hannibal Hamlin, United States Senator of Maine (January 17), to take office as Vice President of the United States. 1867 – Rutherford B. Hayes, United States Representative (July 20), to run for Governor of Ohio 1873 – Henry Wilson, United States Senator of Massachusetts (March 3), to take office as Vice President of the United States. 1877 – Rutherford B. Hayes, Governor of Ohio (March 2), to take office as President of the United States. 1880 – James Garfield, United States Representative (November 8), to take office as President of the United States. 1885 – Grover Cleveland, Governor of New York (January 6), to take office as President of the United States. 1898 – John W. Griggs, Governor of New Jersey (January 31), to accept appointment as U.S. Attorney General under President William McKinley 1898 – Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (May 10), to lead the Rough Riders in the Spanish American War.
20th century
1901–1960 11 July 1902: Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, due to failing health. 3 March 1905: Charles W. Fairbanks, United States Senator, to assume office as Vice President of the United States. 28 January 1907: Charles Curtis, United States Representative, resigned to become Senator to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Joseph R. Burton. 6 October 1910: Charles Evans Hughes, Governor of New York, to accept appointment as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 10 March 1912: Sun Yat-sen, Provisional President of China, in favor of Yuan Shikai. 1 March 1913: Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New Jersey, to assume office as the President of the United States. 9 June 1915: William Jennings Bryan, United States Secretary of State, following handling of the handling of the German submarine sinking of the Lusitania by President Woodrow Wilson. 6 December 1916: H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, amidst division in the House of Commons during the First World War. 16 May 1919: Walter E. Edge, Governor of New Jersey, following election as United States Senator. 26 August 1920: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, to run as Vice President. 13 January 1921: Warren G. Harding, United States Senator, to assume office as the President of the United States. 20 May 1923: Bonar Law, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, due to poor health. 3 March 1929: Charles Curtis, United States Senator, to assume office as the Vice President of the United States. 3 February 1930: William H. Taft, Chief Justice of the United States, due to poor health. 10 May 1940: Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, amidst division in the House of Commons during the Second World War. 3 December 1942: Herbert H. Lehman, Governor of New York, to begin work at the Department of State and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. 17 January 1945: Harry S Truman, United States Senator, to assume office as the Vice President of the United States 20 September 1946: Henry A. Wallace, United States Secretary of Commerce, after conflicts with President Harry Truman. 2 January 1947: Edward Martin, Governor of Pennsylvania, to assume office as a Senator. 19 January 1949: Alben W. Barkley, United States Senator, to assume office as the Vice President of the United States the next day. 30 November 1950: Richard Nixon, United States Representative, to prepare to assume office as a Senator. 1 January 1953: Richard Nixon, United States Senator, to assume office as the Vice President of the United States. 5 April 1955: Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, due to poor health, but remained in the House of Commons. 9 January 1957: Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez Crisis.
1961–1970 1960 22 December: John F. Kennedy, United States Senator, to become the President of the United States.
1961 3 January: Lyndon B. Johnson, United States Senate Majority Leader, to become Vice President of the United States.
1962
22 June: Alexander Frick, Prime Minister of Liechtenstein, for health reasons
1963 5 June: John Profumo, United Kingdom Secretary of State for War, after misleading the House of Commons in relation to his controversial personal life. 18 October: Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, after the Profumo scandal.
1964 18 October: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Governor of Maharashtra, to become a member of the Lok Sabha. 29 December: Hubert Humphrey, United States Senator, to become Vice President of the United States.
1969 29 January: Wally Hickel, Governor of Alaska, to become the United States Secretary of the Interior. 28 April: Charles de Gaulle, President of France, following defeat in a constitutional referendum. 20 July: V. V. Giri, Acting President of India, to contest the presidential election. 14 October: Tage Erlander, Prime Minister of Sweden.
1970 22 September: Tunku Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaysia.
1971–1980 1972 5 October: Jens Otto Krag, Prime Minister of Denmark, over disputes regarding a European Community membership referendum.
1973 10 October: Spiro Agnew, Vice President of the United States, over allegations of financial irregularities. 6 December: Gerald Ford, United States Representative, to accept appointment as the Vice President of the United States. 18 December: Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, to allow his deputy Malcolm Wilson to run for governorship.
1974 11 April: Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, after becoming unpopular due to the Israeli government's unpreparedness for the Yom Kippur War. 7 May: Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany, after the Guillaume affair. 9 August: Richard Nixon, President of the United States, after becoming mired in the Watergate scandal and impeachment hearings. 9 September: Jerald terHorst, White House Press Secretary, in protest of President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon. 9 December: Kakuei Tanaka, Prime Minister of Japan, after allegations of corruption and a public inquiry in the National Diet.
1975 1 December: Gurdial Singh Dhillon, Speaker of the Lok Sabha of India, to become the Minister of Shipping and Transport of India.
1976 15 January: Trygve Bratteli, Prime Minister of Norway. 5 April: Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, partly due to health problems. 11 September: Wee Toon Boon, office holder and Member of Singaporean Parliament, over corruption investigations. 22 October: Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, President of Ireland, after a falling out with the Irish Government. 30 December: Walter Mondale, United States Senator, to assume office as Vice President of the United States.
1977 8 April: Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, after allegations of financial improprieties. 20 October: Raúl Héctor Castro, Governor of Alaska, to accept nomination as the United States Ambassador to Argentina.
1978 15 June: Giovanni Leone, President of Italy, after allegations of corruption about the Lockheed scandal.
1981–1990 1981 29 January: Adolfo Suárez, Prime Minister of Spain.
1984 30 June: Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, retiring from politics due to unpopularity of the Liberal Party.
1985 28 March: Devan Nair, President of Singapore. 16 April: Idris Hasan Latif, Governor of Maharashtra, to become the Indian Ambassador to France.
1986 7 January: Michael Heseltine, United Kingdom Secretary of State for Defence, over differences with cabinet over the Westland affair. 25 February: Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines, actually defeated in elections he tried to rig in his favor triggering protests.
1987 24 March: Albert Guðmundsson, Minister of Industry of Iceland, over financial scandal. 2 September: Shankar Dayal Sharma, Governor of Maharashtra, to become the Vice President of India.
1988 16 March: Musa Hitam, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, over differences with prime minister Mahathir Mohamad over government policy.
1989 3 January: Dan Quayle, United States Senator from Indiana, to take office as Vice President of the United States. 8 August: David Lange, Prime Minister of New Zealand, over differences with party over "Rogernomics" economic policy. 26 October: Nigel Lawson, United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer, over differences with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her refusal to dismiss her Chief Economic Adviser, Alan Walters, who also resigned later the same day. 26 October: Alan Walters, Chief Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 1 November: Geoffrey Howe, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, over differences with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher over government policy on the European Monetary System. 27 November: Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, after narrowly failing to win outright in the first round of a leadership contest. 28 November: Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore, but later became Senior Minister until 2011, and remained as Member of Parliament until his death on 2015.
1991–2000 1991 7 November: Albert Reynolds, Minister for Finance of Ireland. 20 December: Bob Hawke, Prime Minister of Australia, after the loss of leadership spill within the Labor Party. 25 December: Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, completing the dissolution of the Soviet Union effectively losing power in Russia to RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and failing to keep the Soviet republics from declaring independence.
1992 12 December: Bill Clinton, Governor of Arkansas, to assume office as President of the United States.
1993 2 January: Al Gore, United States Senator from Tennessee, to assume office as the Vice President of the United States. 9 January: Chidambaram Subramaniam, Governor of Maharashtra, after criticizing the style of functioning of Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. 25 June: Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada, retiring from politics due to the Conservative Party's unpopularity in the federal election after his introduction of the goods and services tax. 1 September: Ong Teng Cheong, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, to assume office as the President of Singapore. 15 October: Ghafar Baba, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, after losing to Anwar Ibrahim in the UMNO's deputy leadership contest.
1994