What is the difference between a CEO and a President?

Depends on who you ask - because it typicaly varies from company to company. 

Most would agree that the CEO is invloved more in outwardly focused
activities: long-term objectives, strategic planning, relationships,
media, etc., while the President is more inwardly focused: day to day
operations, managing direct reports, etc.

If that's so, then where do the chairman of the board and the
operations manager oe vice president fit in? Also when did this idea
of a CEO creap into the business world. It seems to me the top bird in
a corporation has been in the past the president.