Video: 'James K. Polk: The Greatest American President You've Never Heard Of'

(Monday, November 2, 1795) — James Knox Polk, the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849), was born today in a farmhouse (possibly a log cabin) in what is now Pineville, North Carolina, in Mecklenburg County, just outside Charlotte.

A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of Jacksonian democracy and American expansionism.

Video: 'James K. Polk: The Greatest American President You've Never Heard Of'

Polk saw Texas join the Union in his first year in office, one of the precipitating causes that soon led the U.S. into the Mexican–American War. The settlement of that war expanded American territory to the Pacific Ocean.

During his term, the dispute over the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom was also resolved, creating the present U.S.-Canadian boundary.