The President of the United States is considered to be the most powerful person in the world. This is not his story. This is the story of the acronym he has come to be known by: POTUS.

• The acronym probably first became popular with the advent of the telegraph when brevity was valued due to the time and effort it saved.
• Even with the advent of telephones, wires were still used for newspapers and railroads meaning that the acronym lived on into the modern era.
• The acronym soon began to attract an allure of mysticism and might around it. Railway telegraph operators knew the gravity of learning that POTUS was in one of the cars on the tracks.
• By 1966 there were telephones around the Whitehouse with a red button labelled “POTUS” connecting directly to the President.
• Today things have come full circle. POTUS is the President’s handle on Twitter because….brevity is valued due to character limitations.

Read more about the history of the acronym here.

Source: Vox