The Presidential Timeline of the Twentieth Century

Early Life and Career

January 30, 1882 - March 4, 1933

Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York, on January 30, 1882, the son of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano Roosevelt. His parents and private tutors provided him with almost all his formative education. He attended Groton (1896-1900), a prestigious preparatory school in Massachusetts, and received a BA degree in history from Harvard in only three years (1900-03). Roosevelt next studied law at New York’s Columbia University. When he passed the bar examination in 1907, he left school without taking a degree. For the next three years, he practiced law with a prominent New York City law firm. He entered politics in 1910 and was elected to the New York State Senate as a Democrat from his traditionally Republican home district. In the meantime, in 1905, he had married a distant cousin Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. The couple had six children, five of whom survived infancy: Anna (1906), James (1907), Elliott (1910), Franklin, Jr. (1914) and John (1916). Roosevelt was reelected to the State Senate in 1912, and he supported Woodrow Wilson’s candidacy at the Democratic National Convention. As a reward for his support, Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913, a position he held until 1920. He was an energetic and efficient administrator, specializing in the business side of naval administration. This experience prepared him for his future role as Commander-in-Chief during World War II.

Roosevelt’s popularity and success in naval affairs resulted in his being nominated for vice-president by the Democratic Party in 1920 on a ticket headed by James M. Cox of Ohio. However, popular sentiment against Wilson’s plan for U.S. participation in the League of Nations propelled Republican Warren Harding into the presidency, and Roosevelt returned to private life. While vacationing at Campobello Island, New Brunswick in the summer of 1921, Roosevelt contracted poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis). Despite courageous efforts to overcome his crippling illness, he never regained the use of his legs. In time, he established a foundation at Warm Springs, Georgia, to help other polio victims, and inspired, as well as directed, the March of Dimes program that eventually funded an effective vaccine. With the encouragement and help of his wife Eleanor and political confidant Louis Howe, Roosevelt resumed his political career.

In 1924, he nominated Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York for president at the Democratic National Convention, but Smith lost the nomination to John W. Davis. In 1928, Smith became the Democratic candidate for president and arranged for Roosevelt’s nomination to succeed him as governor of New York. Smith lost the election to Herbert Hoover, but Roosevelt was elected governor. Following his reelection as governor in 1930, Roosevelt began to campaign for the presidency. While the economic depression damaged Hoover and the Republicans, Roosevelt’s bold efforts to combat it in New York enhanced his reputation. In Chicago in 1932, Roosevelt won the nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for president. He broke with tradition and flew to Chicago to accept the nomination in person. He then campaigned energetically calling for government intervention in the economy to provide relief, recovery and reform. His activist approach and personal charm helped to defeat Hoover in November 1932 by seven million votes.

January 30, 1882: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is born in Hyde Park, New York, to James and Sara Delano Roosevelt.
September 1896: Roosevelt enters Groton School in Massachusetts.
June 25, 1900: Roosevelt graduates from Groton School in Massachusetts.
December 8, 1900: Roosevelt’s father, James Roosevelt, dies.
June 24, 1903: Roosevelt receives a bachelors degree in history from Harvard University.
1904: Roosevelt enters Columbia Law School. Though he did not complete his degree, he passes the New York Bar examination.
March 17, 1905: Roosevelt marries Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, his fifth cousin once removed.
May 3, 1906: Daughter Anna Roosevelt is born.
December 23, 1907: Son James Roosevelt is born.
March 18, 1909: Eleanor Roosevelt gives birth to a son named Franklin, Jr., who dies in infancy on November 1.
September 23, 1910: Son Elliott Roosevelt is born.
November 8, 1910: Roosevelt is elected to New York State Senate, representing Dutchess, Columbia and Putnam counties.
November 5, 1912: Roosevelt is re-elected to New York State Senate.
March 17, 1913: Roosevelt is sworn in as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson.
August 19, 1914: Son Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., is born.
September 28, 1914: Roosevelt is defeated in Democratic primary for United States Senate.
March 13, 1916: Son John A. Roosevelt is born.
July 6, 1920: Roosevelt is nominated for Vice President on the ticket with James Cox, but he is defeated in the election on November 2.
August 10, 1921: Roosevelt is stricken with polio at Campobello in New Brunswick, Canada.
June 26, 1924: Roosevelt re-emerges on the national political scene with his “Happy Warrior” speech nominating Governor Alfred E. Smith for president at the Democratic National Convention in New York City.
October 3, 1924: Roosevelt first visits Warm Springs, Georgia, whose warm waters were reputed to have curative powers.
1925: Roosevelt builds Val-Kill Cottage for Eleanor and her friends, who also co-found Val-Kill Industries, a furniture factory intended to employ local Hyde Park craftsmen.
February 1, 1927: Roosevelt founds the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation for the treatment of polio victims.
November 6, 1928: Roosevelt is elected Governor of New York State.
April 3, 1929: Roosevelt delivers the first half-hour radio address, a forerunner of his Fireside Chats.
November 4, 1930: Roosevelt is re-elected Governor of New York State.
August 28, 1931: Roosevelt recommends the creation of the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration in an address to a special session of the state legislature.
July 2, 1932: Roosevelt flies from Albany to Chicago to accept the Democratic nomination for President. He pledges “a New Deal for the American people.”
November 8, 1932: Roosevelt is elected President of the United States, defeating Herbert Hoover.
February 15, 1933: Guiseppe Zangara makes an assassination attempt in Miami, Florida, but Roosevelt is unhurt.

Presidency

March 4, 1933 - April 12, 1945

The Depression worsened in the months preceding Roosevelt’s inauguration, March 4, 1933. Factory closings, farm foreclosures and bank failures increased, while unemployment soared. Roosevelt faced the greatest crisis in American history since the Civil War. He undertook immediate actions to initiate his New Deal. To halt depositor panics, he closed the banks temporarily. Then he worked with a special session of Congress during the first “100 days” to pass the recovery legislation that set up the alphabet agencies such as the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration) to support farm prices and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) to employ young men. Other agencies assisted business and labor, insured bank deposits, regulated the stock market, subsidized home and farm mortgage payments and aided the unemployed. These measures revived confidence in the economy. Banks reopened and direct relief saved millions from starvation. But the New Deal measures also involved government directly in areas of social and economic life as never before and resulted in greatly increased spending and unbalanced budgets, which led to criticisms of Roosevelt’s programs. However, the nation-at-large supported Roosevelt and elected additional Democrats to state legislatures and governorships in the mid-term elections.

Another flurry of New Deal legislation followed in 1935, including the establishment of the Works Projects Administration (WPA), which provided jobs not only for laborers but also for artists, writers, musicians and authors, and the signing of the Social Security Act which provided unemployment compensation and a program of old-age and survivors’ benefits. Roosevelt easily defeated Alfred M. Landon in 1936 and went on to defeat by lesser margins, Wendell Willkie, in 1940, and Thomas E. Dewey, in 1944. He thus became the only American president to serve more than two terms. After his overwhelming victory in 1936, Roosevelt took on the critics of the New deal, namely, the Supreme Court, which had declared various legislation unconstitutional, and members of his own party. In 1937, he proposed to add new justices to the Supreme Court, but critics said he was “packing” the Court and undermining the separation of powers. His proposal was defeated, but the Court began to decide in favor of New Deal legislation. During the 1938 election, he campaigned against many Democratic opponents, but this backfired when most were reelected to Congress. These setbacks, coupled with the recession that occurred midway through his second term, represented the low-point in Roosevelt’s presidential career.

By 1939, Roosevelt was concentrating increasingly on foreign affairs with the outbreak of war in Europe. New Deal reform legislation diminished, and the ills of the Depression would not fully abate until the nation mobilized for war. When Hitler attacked Poland in September 1939, Roosevelt stated that, although the nation was neutral, he did not expect America to remain inactive in the face of Nazi aggression. Accordingly, he tried to make American aid available to Britain, France and China and to obtain an amendment of the Neutrality Acts, which rendered such assistance difficult. He also took measures to build up the armed forces in the face of isolationist opposition.

With the fall of France in 1940, the American mood and Roosevelt’s policy changed dramatically. Congress enacted a draft for military service and Roosevelt signed a “lend-lease” bill in March 1941, to enable the nation to furnish aid to nations at war with Germany and Italy. America, though a neutral in the war and still at peace, was becoming the “arsenal of democracy,” as its factories began producing as they had in the years before the Depression. The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, followed four days later by Germany’s and Italy’s declarations of war against the United States, brought the nation irrevocably into the war. Roosevelt exercised his powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, a role he actively carried out. He worked with and through his military advisers, overriding them when necessary, and took an active role in choosing the principal field commanders and in making decisions regarding wartime strategy. He moved to create a “grand alliance” against the Axis powers through “The Declaration of the United Nations,” dated January 1, 1942, in which all nations fighting the Axis agreed not to make a separate peace and pledged themselves to a peacekeeping organization (now the United Nations) on victory. He gave priority to the western European front and had General George Marshall, Chief of Staff, plan a holding operation in the Pacific and organize an expeditionary force for an invasion of Europe. The United States and its allies invaded North Africa in November 1942 and Sicily and Italy in 1943. The D-Day landings on the Normandy beaches in France, June 6, 1944, were followed by the allied invasion of Germany six months later. By April 1945, victory in Europe was certain.

The unending stress and strain of the war literally wore Roosevelt out. By early 1944, a full medical examination disclosed serious heart and circulatory problems; and although his physicians placed him on a strict regime of diet and medication, the pressures of war and domestic politics weighed heavily on him. During a vacation at Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945, he suffered a massive stroke and died two and one-half hours later without regaining consciousness. He was 63 years old. His death came on the eve of complete military victory in Europe and within months of victory over Japan in the Pacific. President Roosevelt was buried in the Rose Garden of his estate at Hyde Park, New York.

March 4, 1933: Roosevelt is inaugurated as the thirty-second President of the United States.
March 4, 1933: Roosevelt begins the first hundred days of the landmark New Deal legislation, including the declaration of a “bank holiday,” the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the abrogation of the Gold Standard, the signing of the Home Owners Refinancing Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Banking Act. It also established the National Recovery Administration, the Public Works Administration and the Civil Works Administration.
March 6, 1933: Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor becomes the first First Lady to hold regular press conferences dealing with political and social issues.
March 12, 1933: Roosevelt delivers the first Fireside Chat, in which he discusses the banking crisis.
November 16, 1933: Roosevelt recognizes the Soviet Union.
1934: Roosevelt continues the New Deal with the signing of the Farm Mortgage Refinancing Act, the Homeowners Loan Act, the Securities Exchange Act, the Federal Farm Bankruptcy Act, and the National Housing Act.
1935: Roosevelt signs the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, the Wagner Act establishing the National Labor Relations Board, the Public Utility Act and the Social Security Act; and he creates the Rural Electrification Administration and the National Youth Administration.
May 27, 1935: In several decisions, the Supreme Court declares the unconstitutionality of the National Industrial Recovery Act and other measures, threatening the Roosevelt Administration’s New Deal program to fight the economic causes and effects of the Great Depression.
December 30, 1935: Eleanor Roosevelt begins writing her “My Day” newspaper column commenting on current events and issues. She continues “My Day” until October 1962.
June 23, 1936: Roosevelt is nominated for second term at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
August 14, 1936: Roosevelt declares, “I hate war”, in speech delivered at Chautauqua, New York.
November 3, 1936: Roosevelt is re-elected President, defeating Alfred M. Landon of Kansas.
1937: Roosevelt creates the Farm Security Administration and the U.S. Housing Authority to assist small and tenant farmers and to provide financial aid to low-cost construction.
January 20, 1937: Roosevelt is inaugurated for second term as President and discusses the needs of the nation’s one-third who are “ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished.”
February 5, 1937: Roosevelt proposes a so-called “Court Packing Plan” as a reaction to the Supreme Court's repeated invalidation of New Deal legislation.
October 5, 1937: Roosevelt calls for a “quarantine” of aggressor nations in a speech at Chicago.
1938: Roosevelt attempts an unsuccessful “purge” of conservatives from the Democratic Party in mid-term elections.
January 17, 1938: Roosevelt begins the March of Dimes campaign to fight polio.
January 28, 1938: Roosevelt requests appropriation for construction of a two-ocean navy.
June 25, 1938: Roosevelt signs the Fair Labor Standards Act, establishing minimum wages and maximum hours.
February 26, 1939: Eleanor Roosevelt resigns from the Daughters of the American Revolution after African-American singer Marian Anderson is denied the opportunity to sing in Constitution Hall.
April 30, 1939: Roosevelt becomes first president to appear on television by addressing the opening ceremonies of the New York World's Fair.
June 1939: The White House entertains King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain.
September 1939: Following the German attack on Poland on September 1, Roosevelt soon proclaims a state of “limited national emergency” and then calls a special session of Congress to repeal the arms embargo.
October 11, 1939: Roosevelt receives August 2 letter from Albert Einstein discussing the possibilities of an atomic bomb, and he creates the President's Advisory Committee on Uranium the following day.
November 4, 1939: Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York.
1940: Eleanor Roosevelt assists in establishing the U.S. Commission for the Care of European Children to help rescue refugee children from war-torn areas.
July 17, 1940: Roosevelt agrees to run for an unprecedented third term, with Henry Wallace as Vice-President.
September 2, 1940: Roosevelt approves “destroyers for bases” deal with Great Britain.
November 5, 1940: Roosevelt is re-elected for an unprecedented third term as President, defeating Wendell Willkie.
December 29, 1940: In his Fireside Chat, Roosevelt declares that the United States will be the “arsenal of democracy.”
January 6, 1941: In his State of the Union address, Roosevelt enunciates the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
March 11, 1941: Roosevelt signs the Lend Lease Bill, providing Allied nations Britain and Russia with war materials. This is later extended to China.
May 27, 1941: Roosevelt declares “unlimited national emergency” in his Pan American Day Address.
August 9, 1941: Roosevelt meets with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Atlantic Conference at Argentia Bay in Newfoundland, resulting in the Atlantic Charter that cast a hopeful vision for a post-war world.
September 7, 1941: Roosevelt’s mother Sara Delano Roosevelt dies.
September 22, 1941: Eleanor Roosevelt serves as Assistant Director of the Office of Civilian Defense.
December 7, 1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. On the next day, Roosevelt asked Congress to acknowledge the state of war and declared the Japanese attack “a date which will live in infamy.”
December 11, 1941: Germany and Italy declare war on United States.
January 1, 1942: United Nations declaration is signed by 26 nations agreeing with the principles of the Atlantic Charter and establishing joint war aims of the Allied nations.
February 20, 1942: Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 resulting in the evacuation of Japanese-Americans from the Pacific coast to interior relocation camps.
October 7, 1942: In response to information detailing the horrors of the Holocaust, Roosevelt announces intentions to try the “ringleaders responsible for the organized murder” as war criminals.
January 14, 1943: Roosevelt becomes the first President to leave the United States in wartime by traveling to Casablanca, Morocco, for a meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at which the “unconditional surrender” doctrine is announced.
May 27, 1943: Roosevelt orders that all defense contracts forbid racial discrimination.
August 1943: Eleanor Roosevelt travels to Australia, New Zealand, and 17 South Pacific Islands and visits 400,000 soldiers.
November 28, 1943: Roosevelt attends Teheran conference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, where it is agreed that the invasion of France is the main objective in 1944. Eisenhower is selected to command Operation OVERLORD.
January 22, 1944: Roosevelt establishes the War Refugee Board to coordinate public and private efforts to assist those fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe.
June 22, 1944: Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill of Rights, which offers education grants and other assistance to veterans.
July 19, 1944: Roosevelt is nominated for fourth term and accepts with Harry Truman as Vice President.
September 23, 1944: In a campaign speech at the Teamsters’ Union dinner, Roosevelt denounces Republican attacks that he had sent a U.S. Navy destroyer to retrieve his dog Fala after leaving him behind on the Aleutian Islands.
November 7, 1944: Roosevelt is re-elected President for fourth term, defeating Thomas E. Dewey.
February 4, 1945: Roosevelt meets with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta to discuss post-war settlements and the United Nations organization.
March 29, 1945: Roosevelt visits Hyde Park and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library for the last time; then he travels to Warm Springs, Georgia, for rest and recuperation.
April 12, 1945: Roosevelt dies in Warm Springs and is buried at Hyde Park on April 15.