1903 Franklin D. Roosevelt graduated from Harvard University.

1910 Roosevelt is elected to the New York state legislature.

1913 President Wilson appoints Roosevelt as the Secretary of the Navy.

1921 Roosevelt is stricken with polio.

1928 Franklin Roosevelt is elected governor of New York.

1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected President.

1933 Huge dust storms hit the Great Plains.

1933 Roosevelt makes his first "fireside chat."

1933 Roosevelt appoints Frances Perkins to Secretary of Labor. She is the first woman appointed to a cabinet position.

1933 21st Amendment to the Constitution passes ending Prohibition.

1935 Social Security is created.

1939 Germany invades Poland and WW II begins in Europe.

1941 Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. The U.S. enters WW II.

1945 Franklin Roosevelt dies and Harry Truman becomes President.

1946 President Truman appoints Eleanor Roosevelt as a delegate to the United Nations.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
1933 - 1945
32nd President

Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park New York on January 30, 1882.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's mother forced him to wear a dress until he was five years old.

Genealogists have determined that FDR was related to: George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft.

In 1933, FDR declared that Home on the Range was his favorite song.

Franklin D. Roosevelt held the record for the number of times he met with the press: 998 times.

President Roosevelt contracted polio at 39. Through rigorous exercise, he learned to stand with braces.

Franklin Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in 1932 to become President.

Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers a speech in New Albany, IN, during the 1932 Presidential campaign.
FDR, whistle stop, campaign
Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only person who was elected President to four terms: 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944.

Franklin Roosevelt had three Vice Presidents during his terms:

• John Nance Garner (1933-1941)
• Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945)
• Harry S Truman (1945)
  

Franklin Roosevelt was the fourth cousin once removed of Ulysses Grant, fourth cousin three times removed of Zachary Taylor, fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt

FDR served hot dogs to the King and Queen of England when they came for a visit.

His dog, Major, once bit the British Prime Minister, Ramsey McDonald.

In 1935, all plane flights over the White House were barred because they were disturbing President Roosevelt's sleep.

He has a black Scottie name Fala. He was perhaps the most famous of all White House pets. Fala can be seen in several photos of Roosevelt.

FDR was the first president whose mother wes eligible to vote for him.

After his inauguration in 1937, FDR watched the parade from a reviewing stand in front of the White House built to look like Andrew Jackson's Tennessee home.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to fly in an airplane. He did in 1943.

FDR was the first president to have his own airplane, the first to travel through the Panama Canal, the first to visit a foreign country during wartime (6-10-43), and the first to name a woman to his Cabinet.

I'd Rather Be Right was a humorous play that opened on November 2, 1937. It satirized the highest office of the land as it related to FDR.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first President to have air conditioning in the White House.

FDR requested that the White House Easter Egg Roll be discontinued, which it was, for 11 years. Dwight D. Eisenhower brought the tradition back in 1953.

He was the first President to be seen on television.

FDR started the presidential library tradition in 1939 when he donated his papers to the U.S. and asked the National Archives to administer them. His presidential library was the first to be dedicated.

Franklin is the only President with a monument depicting him in a wheelchair.

Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 in Warm Springs, Ga. He was 63 years and 72 days old. He is buried in a family plot in Hyde Park, N. Y.

Quotes from Roosevelt:

"Every time an artist dies part of the vision of mankind passes with him."
1941, As FDR Said, p. 161

Sites:

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

Quick Facts

32nd President
1933-1945

Born: Hyde Park, N.Y. Jan. 30, 1882

Inaugurated as President
First Term: March 4, 1933
Second Term: Jan. 20, 1937
Third Term: Jan. 20, 1941
Fourth Term: Jan. 20, 1945.

Party: Democratic

Died: Warm Spring Ga. April 12, 1945

References:

• The Presidents of the United States. 22 September 2004
• Davis, Gibbs and Ilus. David A. Johnson. Wackiest White House Pets. New York: Scholastic Press, October 2004
• James, Barber and Amy Pastan. Smithsonian Presidents and First Ladies. New York: DK Publishing, 2002
• Harnsberger, Caroline Thomas. Treasury of Presidential Quotations. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1964
• Kane, Joseph Natan. Facts about the Presidents from Washington to Johnson. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1964.
• National Park Service Web Site on Presidential Trivia: http://www.nps.gov/pub_aff/pres/trivia.htm.

Additional Sources:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents
http://www.historyplace.com/specials/portraits/presidents/index.html
www.freep.com
http://www.umkc.edu/imc/prestriv.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/4062/trivia.html
http://www.freep.com/news/inaug/trivia/index.htm
http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/

If you have comments or corrections, please send them to jim@anewadventure.org.