He had a pleasant, sheltered childhood, being taught by a 
        governess and taken on frequent trips to Europe. Once his father took 
        him to the White House to see President Grover Cleveland, who said he 
        hoped that young Franklin would never have the misfortune of becoming 
        president. 
            At fourteen, Roosevelt entered Groton School in Massachusetts. 
        From Groton he went to Harvard College, where he concerned himself 
        more with social life and other activities than with his studies. He 
        graduated in 1904 and went on to Columbia University Law School. 
            In 1905 he married his distant cousin Eleanor Roosevelt who, at 
        the wedding, was given away by her uncle, President Theodore 
        Roosevelt. Franklin was an indifferent law student and did not bother 
        to complete work for his degree after passing his bar examination. Nor 
        was he much interested in his work with a prominent Wall Street law 
        firm. 
            In 1910 the Democratic party persuaded him to run for the state 
        senate. Against all odds and after an energetic campaign, he won his 
        first election. In 1912 Roosevelt supported Woodrow Wilson for the 
        presidential nomination; then when Wilson became president in 1913, 
        Roosevelt was appointed assistant secretary of the navy. He was 
        especially successful as an administrator during the First World War. 
             In 1920 he won the Democratic nomination for vice president, 
        running with the presidential candidate, James M. Cox; but the 
        Democrats were defeated by the Republican Warren Harding. In the 
        summer of 1921, while vacationing at Campobello Island in Canada, he 
        was suddenly stricken with polio which paralyzed him from the waist 
        down. Not yet forty, he seemed finished in politics but his wife, and 
        his private secretary, felt that his recovery would be aided if he 
        kept his political interests. 
            Eleanor cast aside her acute shyness and learned to make 
        appearances for her husband at political meetings. In spite of his 
        illness---which left him unable to walk withoug leg braces, a cane, 
        and a strong arm upon which to lean---Roosevelt remained one of the 
        dominant figures in the Democratic Party. 
            In 1928 Alfred E. Smith, governor of New York, was a candidate for 
        the presidency and urged Roosevelt to run for his position. Smith was 
        defeated by Republican Herbert Hoover but Roosevelt, by a narrow 
        margin, was elected governor of New York. His re-election in 1930 by a 
        record majority made him the leading candidate for the Democratic 
        presidential nomination in 1932. 
            The Depression was the main issue for the presidential elections 
        and Roosevelt, promising a "new deal", defeated Herbert Hoover. 
        Conditions in the United States became worse between his election, on 
        8 November 1932, and his inauguration on 4 March 1933. Thousands of 
        banks failed and a quarter of the nation's wage earners were 
        unemployed. Farmers were in an equally desperate position because of 
        low prices on basic crops. 
            According to Roosevelt, in his inaugural speech, "The only thing 
        we have to fear is fear itself." He closed all U.S. banks to prevent 
        further collapse and called Congress into a special session to pass 
        emergency banking legislation. Within a few days most banks were 
        reopened and people who had withdrawn redepositing. During the first 
        one hundred days of his administration, Roosevelt presented to 
        Congress a wide variety of legislation. At his urging, Congress took 
        the United States off the gold standard and devaluated the dollar. 
        This lowered its exchange value, allowing American products to be sold 
        to better advantage abroad. 
            None of Roosevelt's recovery measures worked quite satisfactorily 
        and the road to recovery was one of ups and downs. Although recovery 
        seemed on the way, unemployment remained high and, in 1935, Roosevelt 
        undertook a large-scale work program. 
            In the 1936 presidential election Roosevelt won re-election over 
        the Republican candidate, Alfred M. Landon, sweeping every state 
        except Maine and Vermont. This time, in his inaugural speech, 
        Roosevelt declared: "I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, 
        ill-nourished." By 1937 the economy had reached almost the prosperity 
        levels of the 1920s, although unemployment continued to be high. 
        However, by 1938 Roosevelt and the American people became concerned
        with events in Europe and Asia, where the aggressive policies of Nazi 
        Germany, Italy, and Japan---known as the Axis powers---threatened to 
        lead to war. 
             In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, war broke out in Europe 
        and, without direct involvement, the United States tried to assist 
        Britain and France. After the fall of France in 1940, Roosevelt, with 
        the approval of Congress, rushed all possible weapons to Britain in 
        order to help the British in the fight against Germany. 
             In the 1940 presidential election his opponent was Wendell Wilkie 
        but Roosevelt won his third term in office. At this time Roosevelt was 
        trying to block Japan's advances into China and Southeast Asia. On 7 
        December 1941 Japanese planes attacked U.S. air and naval bases at 
        Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. The next day Congress declared war on Japan. On 
        11 December Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. With 
        the United States involved in a world conflict, Roosevelt sought to 
        increase U.S. war production and to lead the country in a great 
        alliance against the Axis powers. As commander in chief of the armed 
        forces, he helped plan major offensives in Europe, leading to the 
        Normandy invasion in 1944. At the same time the Japanese were 
        gradually pushed back in the Pacific. 
             He tried to establish friendly relations with Joseph Stalin at 
        the Tehran Conference in 1943 and at the Yalta Conference in 1945. In 
        the 1944 presidential elections he contested his fourth term against 
        Thomas Dewey. However, though he appeared thin, worn, and tired, he 
        was re-elected by a substantial margin. But then his health did not 
        improve and, after returning from the Yalta Conference, he went to 
        Warm Springs, Georgia, to rest. There, on 12 April 1945, he died of a 
        cerebral hemorrhage. 

Source: (Frank Freidel)