Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known by his initials FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States. He was the only president elected to more than two terms, serving from 1933 to 1945. He was born in 1882 into one of the oldest families in New York State. He had a privileged upbringing and attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick's Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt.

 

Following the example of his cousin, Roosevelt entered public service through politics. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920, at the tender age of 34. The Democrats lost the election. In 1921, he was diagnosed as having polio and was paralyzed from the waist down.

 

Roosevelt was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed a sweeping program called the “New Deal” to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes.

 

By 1935 the nation’s economy was recovering and in 1936 FDR was re-elected by a huge margin. He tried to keep the U.S. out of WWII, but when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America joined the war. As WWII drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He is often ranked as one of the top three U.S. Presidents.