Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in 1882 into a wealthy New York family and entered public life as a state senator, assistant secretary of the navy, and Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1920. After contracting polio in 1921, he rebuilt his career and served as governor of New York during the early Great Depression. Elected president in 1932, he took office in 1933 amid bank failures, mass unemployment, and national despair.

Roosevelt’s New Deal transformed the role of the federal government. In his first hundred days, Congress passed emergency banking legislation, relief programs, public works measures, and financial reforms. Later New Deal laws included Social Security in 1935, labor protections, rural electrification, and expanded federal responsibility for economic security. Critics attacked the New Deal as either too radical or too cautious, and his 1937 court-packing plan damaged his standing.

Foreign policy and World War II dominated his later presidency. Roosevelt moved gradually from neutrality toward support for Britain and other Allies through measures such as Lend-Lease. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he led the United States into a global war against Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and their allies.

Roosevelt was elected to four terms, the only president to serve more than two. He helped shape the Allied strategy and the postwar world but died on April 12, 1945, shortly before Germany’s surrender. His record stands as a testament to extraordinary leadership through the two greatest crises of the 20th century, leaving the world more democratic and more hopeful than the one he inherited.