SECRET SERVICE HISTORY

The Secret Service was founded the year Lincoln was assassinated but did not begin to protect presidents until nearly 40 years later.

1865 The Secret Service

Division is created July 5 in Washington, D.C., to combat counterfeit currency.

1883 The agency is officially acknowledged as a distinct organization within the Treasury Department.

1894 The Secret Service begins informal part-time protection of President Grover Cleveland.

1901 Congress informally requests Secret Service presidential protection following the Mckinley assassination.

1902 The Secret Service assumes full-time responsibility for protection of the president. Two operatives are assigned full time to the White House detail.

1917 Congress authorizes permanent protection of the president's immediate family and makes threatening the president a federal crime.

1951 Congress enacts legislation that permanently authorizes Secret Service protection of the president, his immediate family, the president-elect and the vice president.

1968 As a result of Kennedy's assassination, Congress authorizes protection of major presidential and vice presidential candidates and nominees. Congress also authorizes protection of widows of presidents until death or remarriage, and their children until age 16.

2002 The Department of Homeland Security is established, and the Secret Service is transferred to it from the Treasury Department in 2003.

2013 Protection is authorized for former presidents for life, and for children of former presidents up to age 16.

Sources: U.S. Secret Service, The Associated Press, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, The White House Some research compiled by former Focus page editor Charles Apple and artist Scott Brown. Secret Service agents stand watch alongside Air Force One at Long Beach in 2009.