FDR Born: The President Who Remade America
Franklin Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down at 39, struck by polio while vacationing in Canada. He spent years trying to walk again. He never did. He became President of the United States 12 years later, in the depths of the Great Depression, and served four terms — the only president to do so. He largely hid his disability from the public. The Secret Service confiscated photographs showing him in a wheelchair. He led the country through its worst economic crisis and its largest war while unable to stand without assistance. He died in April 1945, three weeks before Germany surrendered, in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he'd been sitting for a portrait.
January 30, 1882
144 years ago
What Else Happened on January 30
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