Franklin D. Roosevelt
1882–1945 1 entry
Biography
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States and the only one elected four times. Born into a wealthy New York family, he studied at Harvard and Columbia and served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the First World War. In 1921 he was struck by an illness, diagnosed as polio, that left him unable to walk unaided for the rest of his life. He went on to become governor of New York, and in 1932 he won the presidency in the depths of the Great Depression.
His New Deal brought public works, banking reform, Social Security and help for the unemployed, and his radio fireside chats spoke directly to millions of Americans. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 he led the country into the Second World War, and with Churchill and Stalin he shaped the alliance that would win it. He died in April 1945, a few weeks before the war in Europe ended.
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