Video: 'The real Herbert Hoover'

(Monday, August 10, 1874) — Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933, was born Herbert Clark Hoover today in West Branch, Iowa, the first American chief executive born in that state and west of the Mississippi River.

Hoover won the Republican nomination in the 1928 presidential election and defeated Democratic candidate Al Smith in a landslide.

In 1929, Hoover assumed the presidency, however, during his first year in office, the stock market crashed, signaling the onset of the Great Depression, which dominated Hoover’s presidency until its end.

Video: 'The Terrible President Who Saved Millions of Lives'

Hoover’s response to the depression was widely seen as lackluster and he scapegoated Mexican Americans for the economic crisis.

Approximately 1.5-2 million Mexican Americans were forcibly “repatriated” to Mexico in a forced migration campaign known as the Mexican Repatriation — a majority of them were born in the United States.

In the midst of the Great Depression, Hoover was decisively defeated by Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election.