Born into a prominent family—Theodore Roosevelt was a distant cousin—Franklin Roosevelt was, like T.R., the assistant secretary of the Navy and New York governor before winning the 1932 presidential election. Roosevelt spoke of a “New Deal” for the American people, his plan to combat the Great Depression by providing federal relief and economic regulation. “The only thing we have to fear,” he declared in his 1933 inaugural speech, “is fear itself.”

The president seemed to have boundless energy, though polio had left him unable to walk on his own. By his third term, events overseas were erupting. After Japan bombed Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war. Soon, the United States was involved in both theaters of World War II.

Roosevelt won an unmatched four presidential elections, serving longer than any other president. Despite his failing health, he began planning the United Nations, an organization that he hoped would help settle all future international conflicts. By 1945, however, his health was obviously declining. Shortly after the beginning of his fourth term as president, while visiting “the little White House,” his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia, he suffered a stroke and died. He was buried at his family home in Hyde Park, New York. The Allies declared victory in Europe less than a month later.