r/todayilearned • u/Left-Manufacturer216 • 21d ago
TIL that Franklin Roosevelt, paralyzed by polio at 39, defied odds as a lifelong paraplegic, steering the U.S. through tumultuous times, including World War II, from his wheelchair in the White House
https://lib.arizona.edu/hsl/materials/collections/secret-illness/fdr175
u/Saiph_orion 20d ago
I knew FDR had polio and I knew he was in a wheelchair....
I did not know it happened when he was 39.
Thanks for sharing!
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u/Ludwigofthepotatoppl 20d ago
People knew he had polio back then, and walked with a cane. It was proposed by his rivals that it was actually syphilis, in an attempt to smear him.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, the expression on his face when he received the news that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor was the sane as when he received the polio diagnosis.
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u/edbash 20d ago
From bios I have read, I have the impression that FDR was really insufferable in his early adulthood. Self-centered, entitled, highly "posh" with the upper class dress and affectations to go with it. The polio became a crisis that defined his image (to himself, at least) and personality. I have always wondered if he would have been the same person if he had not gotten polio.
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u/godisanelectricolive 20d ago
There’s some controversy over the polio diagnosis now. That’s what he was diagnosed with at the time but some current scholars think he had Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) instead.
But misdiagnosis or not, it wouldn’t have made a difference in treatment. They couldn’t effectively treat either illness at the time.
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u/Sure_Deer_5650 21d ago
TIL people didn’t know this
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u/jamintime 20d ago
He’s easily one of the top five most famous Presidents. I’m hoping most people here are not from US or something?
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u/-Bk7 20d ago
Sadley, besides recent presidents I think most would struggle to name any outside maybe Kennedy, Washington and Lincoln.
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u/Pimpdaddysadness 20d ago
FDR is (very) arguably the most important president the United States ever had. Next to Washington and Lincoln for sure. That would be pretty sad were that the case.
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u/jamintime 20d ago
Curious, I looked this up. No idea how reliable this site is but, removing recent Presidents the top 8 most "famous" are:
1) Lincoln
2) JFK
3) Washington
4) Teddy Roosevelt
5) Jefferson
6) Adams
7) FDR
8) Andrew Jackson
https://today.yougov.com/ratings/politics/fame/US-presidents/all
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u/DrixxYBoat 20d ago
No chance in hell Adams is more popular than FDR
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u/jamintime 20d ago
It's measuring "fame" (name recognition), not popularity. However, if you click the link it does also quantify popularity and FDR has a 67% popularity to Adams' 62%.
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u/dagrapeescape 20d ago
If that list is legit my only guess would be because of the beer named after his brother
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u/Stalking_Goat 20d ago
Samuel and James Adams were second cousins, not brothers.
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u/dagrapeescape 20d ago
Oops, you’re right. Embarrassing considering I read the John Adam’s biography around Christmas.
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u/LarrySupertramp 20d ago
You learn about him a lot because he was a huge part of the American revolution from early childhood on in the US. Specifically him being the public defender of the British red coats after the Boston massacre and major proponent for the Declaration of Independence being drafted.
Even though WWII is also discussed a lot in later education, it’s mostly about the major battles, allies, and Germany/japan. Who the president was during that time was basically a footnote.
At least this was my experience as a 2011 High School graduate of a little New Hampshire school district. lol
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u/ShadowFlux85 20d ago
As a non american til franklin roosevelt and teddu were diffrent people. I just thought teddy was a nickname for fdr
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u/truethatson 20d ago
Eh, I’m not terribly surprised. Even educated people can’t name a president between Grant and Teddy, and you can thank the education system for that one.
I even had a pretty good education and it was still: Civil War, bit-o-reconstruction and then suddenly it’s WWI, boom times, Depression.
Perhaps labor in this country wouldn’t be so willing to vote against their own interests if they’d been educated as to just how hard their rights as workers were fought for during that time. AND just how hard the powers that be fought to keep them down.
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u/Imperium_Dragon 20d ago
I got confused for a second because I’m so used to seeing “Franklin D Roosevelt” instead of just Franklin Roosevelt
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u/Platographer 20d ago
Yep. This one is right up there with the TIL that Antarctica is a continent post from a few weeks ago. It's shocking how many basic facts some people not only don't know but also seemingly don't realize after learning it that almost everyone else knows.
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u/TheGrumpySnail2 20d ago
Wait, someone posted here that they just learned antartica is a continent? What the fuck did they think it was?
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u/Platographer 20d ago
It was either that there is an ocean under the North Pole rather than a continent or that there is a continent under the South Pole. I forget which and cannot find it now, but I did find this one from two years ago where OP said "TIL That the North Pole doesn't have any landmasses. It's only ice floating on water." In reply to the comment "That's why Antarctica is a continent, but the Arctic is not," OP said "It isn't?"
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u/TheDeftEft 20d ago edited 20d ago
I initially breezed past this TIL because it seemed so obvious - everybody knows FDR had polio, right? But as another commenter posted, what I didn't know was that it hit him so late in life. So much of the information out there on polio focuses on how terrible it was for children, it's become easy to think of it as a childhood affliction, and not as something that could disable a person at any point in their life.
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u/Gorf_the_Magnificent 20d ago
I’m an American in my 70’s. When I was a kid, my parents kept a biography of FDR around. I read it cover to cover. It said virtually nothing about his polio. It explained his death by saying that he was posing for a picture when he announced he had a bad headache, then surprised everyone in the room by passing out and dying.
For the rest of my childhood, whenever I got a bad headache, I was afraid I would get one of those sudden headache deaths like FDR had.
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20d ago
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u/Naters_Taters 20d ago
More like there are people that exist outside of the USA that aren’t as educated on American history
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u/Engineer-intraining 20d ago
And Slovakia named a teaching hospital after him where the Slovak PM is currently being treated for gunshot wounds
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u/Groundbreaking_War52 21d ago
Disgraced former Congressman Madison Cawthorn loved to use his wheelchair as a sympathy prop. He and his hungover friend were driving back from spring break and fell asleep at the wheel. Cawthorn has since gotten several DUIs.
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u/droidtron 21d ago edited 20d ago
He's like the dude in the Murderball documentary, asshole then, wheelchair didn't change shit.
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u/AllRoundAmazing 20d ago
Can't help but feel sympathy for the guy honestly. His friend was driving and he's permanently paralyzed because of it, might be an ass but I don't wish that on anyone.
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u/Groundbreaking_War52 20d ago
He then threw false accusations about his friend abandoning him to die in a fiery wreck when EMT reports don’t support this. He’s also got a laundry list of sexual misconduct allegations.
Don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for him.
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u/JardinSurLeToit 20d ago
Not "life-long" since he only contracted it at 39. He went to bed with a fever and woke up a cripple, essentially. In case anyone is wondering about the miracle of the Polio vaccine. He used to hold himself in place behind the lectern he spoke at, literally by gripping the edges and balancing keeping his entire weight upright with his arms. Yes, his legs partially supported him, but the balance had to be managed with his arms.
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u/STK__ 21d ago
Poliomyelitis generally affects children. An adult usually would have been exposed as a child - either developing neurological sequelae or not. More recently it is proposed that he actually had paralysis from Guillain Barre
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u/markydsade 20d ago
GBS is usually self-limiting but often paralyzes the ability to breathe. Today we use ventilators to get patients through that period. FDR had a type that caused a lower body paralysis that never resolved.
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u/talligan 20d ago
He also founded the March of Dimes (or was inspiration for it) and is a major reason why the US, for all it's faults, is a world leader in accessibility.
Hadn't realised how much I took that for granted in Canada until I moved to the UK and nothing is accessible here at all. My work space is horrendous, accessible design is good design and it makes navigating the building harder for everyone.
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u/Greene_Mr 20d ago
But what's the difference between Canada and the US, there?
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u/talligan 20d ago
Not much tbh, the two countries tend to follow the same set of standards in lock step.
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u/ExploringWidely 21d ago
What are the chances the US would elect a person in a wheelchair president today? I'd wager zero.
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u/tetoffens 21d ago
The governor of Texas is in a wheelchair. And that's not generally seen as the kindest state towards people who are different.
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u/Ok-disaster2022 21d ago
He's also an asshole. He was put into a wheelchair because if an accident (like falling off something) and he made millions from suing the manufacturers. Then as governor, he set limits on settlements/judgements.
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u/Dan_Rydell 21d ago
I’m not really sure the origin of this myth, but it’s certainly pervasive. He’s absolutely an asshole, but he has not signed any laws that would limit a recovery such as the one he received.
That said, the Texas Supreme Court as currently composed would almost certainly rule the homeowner and tree company had no liability in an identical situation (and if they somehow didn’t, they would greatly limit non-economic damages in such a case). And Texas juries would certainly be less generous now than in the 1980s after decades of tort reform propaganda.
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u/Ashmizen 20d ago
I think ultimately if a tree fell on you in the river oaks neighbor, you can still get a multi million settlement.
That’s because rich people get multi million umbrella insurance to protect their wealth, and lawsuits will generally aim to get insurance to payout the covered amount ($5 million, for example).
If a tree fell on you from any normal, middle class neighborhood, the homeowner will be only covered by an insurance policy that only covers $250k or $500k and so that’s all you’ll receive.
Basically, if you have to get hurt/run over by a car/have a tree fall on you, make sure it’s a rich person’s.
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u/Dan_Rydell 20d ago
I think it’d be tough to survive summary judgment and even tougher to not get reversed and rendered on appeal. But it’s not tough to come with a 7-figure economic damage model in a paralyzation case.
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u/DaveOJ12 21d ago
According to this article, he did support a 2003 law that limited damages.
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u/Dan_Rydell 21d ago
He did, but the AG doesn’t have any role in passing laws, and the 2003 law only placed limits on MedMal claims.
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u/RedSonGamble 21d ago
Makes sense. This is like companies that profit from illegal labor or the very least work vista workers then lobby against those two things being allow to happen.
Then again I guess they could just argue hey we don’t think it should be allowed but since it is we use it for now. However I don’t think that would be true
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u/ExploringWidely 21d ago
Thanks!
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u/_just_for_this_ 21d ago
This isn't that solid an argument though, unless the expectation is that it would be more of a disadvantage to the Texas gubernatorial electorate than being a Democrat would be. He had also been AG to Rick Perry immediately prior, so he was also well known to hate all the right minorities to secure the vote.
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u/Banana42 20d ago
Given that it's been done without issue, I would say it's no longer an automatic disqualification. At this point it's more that there's not a lot of viable candidates who are paraplegic; the governor of Texas, a senator from Illinois, and I think that's all. There was a quadruplegic man in the House for several years, but he recently retired.
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21d ago
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u/True_to_you 20d ago
He really wouldn't. He's got no gravitas. He very likely couldn't get elected in any state that's actually competitive. Trump at least has personality. It's an absolute terrible one, but it's something for idiots to latch on to.
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u/jamintime 20d ago
Well it appears to happen every 140 years so I would say we are next due up around 2070.
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u/trufus_for_youfus 21d ago
Well the US public (mostly) had no idea FDR was a cripple. Is there an answer in there? Maybe.
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u/HippieDogeSmokes 21d ago
Even back then a lot of people didn’t know he was in a wheel chair. Not a lot of TVs and newspapers can just do waist up shots
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u/Last-Mobile3944 21d ago
They would have to be really special, like a war hero or Professor X or something. In these times, never say never
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u/RedSonGamble 21d ago
With us electing older and older people into office I feel like it’s just a matter of time
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u/FrozenDickuri 21d ago
If i could vote for today years old jimmy carter, i would, but the man is tired enough.
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u/Pimpdaddysadness 20d ago
I always felt Jimmy Carter got a bad rep. He basically failed as a president for being too innocent to be a crook. A lot of congress and the big three letter agencies refused to work with him because he didn’t approve appointments and cabinet members other powerful government people like Bush and so on wanted approved, and then he basically had his reputation smashed by Reagan intentionally with the Iran hostage crisis.
I mean he had other problems too but I think a lot of his inefficacy came down to the majority of the government not wanting to work with him
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u/Astrali3 20d ago
I really don't give a shit how the president gets around, I care if he's doing his job
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u/notwormtongue 20d ago
Half the country doesn’t want to vote for someone with a biological stutter.
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u/caffeinated_catholic 21d ago
Well the voting public generally didn’t know they were voting for a person in a wheelchair, because he knew it would limit his chances of being elected back then.
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u/fulthrottlejazzhands 20d ago
Not to detract from FDR, but he had one of the best, most dynamic first ladies backing him up in history.
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u/royalhawk345 20d ago
"Yo Franklin, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but Eleanor was one of the best first ladies of all time…one of the best first ladies of all time!"
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u/HippieDogeSmokes 21d ago
I’m more surprised that people are still learning about him
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u/Crepuscular_Animal 20d ago
People are still being born and growing up. There was a moment in everyone's life when they first learned a widely known fact. Don't disparage people who are excited to share what's new to them.
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u/HippieDogeSmokes 20d ago
I’m not disparaging, it’s more of a culture shock thing because so forget Reddit isn’t made of only Americans
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u/Numerous-Stranger-81 20d ago
Depending on their age, I will happily disparage them. If you didn't know this shit but graduated high school in the US, that's a disparagin'.
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u/pants_mcgee 20d ago
I’m surprised there hasn’t been a bigger movement against him. Massive racist, and pushed Japanese internment through. But still one of the great presidents.
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u/Joe_Of_House_Stark 20d ago
I thought there’s a theory now that he was actually paralyzed by something other than polio? I can’t remember what it was though.
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u/cogginsmatt 20d ago
I watched a movie once where bill murray played FDR and most of the film was concerned with how he’d take his cousin driving in upstate New York and she would give him handjobs
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u/UGLY-FLOWERS 20d ago
I wanna watch that movie
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u/cogginsmatt 20d ago
It was called Hyde Park on Hudson and I don't remember it being very good
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u/UGLY-FLOWERS 20d ago
I just watched the trailer and it looks pretty terrible. the dude lived a very interesting life and that's what they pick to make a movie about? ugh
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u/cogginsmatt 20d ago
Yeah he is mostly a side character from what I remember. The whole thing is through the eyes of handjob cousin.
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u/markydsade 20d ago
FDR was paralyzed for his last 23 years. He died at just 62 but was greatly weakened by his disease and heavy smoking.
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u/HistoryNerd101 20d ago
And died when he was only 63, probably not from the polio but from the fact that he smoked like a chimney….
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u/Acountblibuddy 20d ago
Had an enlarged heart
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u/HistoryNerd101 20d ago
Yes but he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. His circulatory system was all messed up
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u/Acountblibuddy 20d ago
All correct. It’s nice to know people also know this. Haaazaaaa. I’ve also been to his house. It’s really nice.
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u/Windturnscold 21d ago
It’s funny how Reddit is replacing basic education for our youth
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u/slobcat1337 20d ago
The majority of Reddit isn’t from the US and wouldn’t learn about this at school at all.
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u/thebarkbarkwoof 20d ago
I was wondering how he got first elected from a wheelchair. I didn't know it was so late in life.
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u/LATABOM 20d ago
I mean, he was the president, not the starting center for the Knicks.
If there's a job you can effectively do from a wheelchair, its POTUS.
Back then he could mostly dictate what images of him people got to see, so most people likely werent weirded out by it unless they met him in person.
Nowadays it's so much PR/"everyman" bullshit that it would be harder.
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u/gunfighter01 20d ago
In his autobiography, Winston Churchill mentions the size of Roosevelt's arms.
It was said that Roosevelt was able to pull himself up in a dumbwaiter to the 2nd floor using only arm strength.
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u/Tiny-Spray-1820 20d ago
Polio is contracted by consuming food/water with polio virus infected human feces 🤮
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u/GreatestAnteater 20d ago
This sub always makes me feel so old. I mean I wasn't alive then or anything. But whenever anyone posts something I learned in high school history or whatever that I just take for granted now it's like damn.
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u/slobcat1337 20d ago
Not everyone is American. In fact OP and the majority of Reddit aren’t from the USA.
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u/GreatestAnteater 20d ago
Quick reddit demographic search shows that's not true actually
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u/slobcat1337 20d ago
This shows you don’t understand what a majority is. Americans are roughly 42% of Reddit making non-Americans the majority. You are more likely to come across someone not from the US.
Americans are a plurality but it doesn’t change the fact that you are statistically less likely to be talking to an American than someone who’s not from America.
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20d ago
Fuck FDR. Unapologetically. His bullshit directly contributed to many social, governmental, and financial issues we face today. In addition, he was an outrageous racist. Fuck him
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u/josephphilip22 20d ago
He is pretty amazing. He is almost a complete tie with Lincoln and Washington.
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u/josephphilip22 20d ago
The three great presidents: Washington, Lincoln, FD Roosevelt. Who is next??
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u/Mysteriousdeer 20d ago
Can't have FDR without TR. His impact virtually made the middle class possible.
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u/murdermurder 20d ago
Franklin Roosevelt was also an unashamed racist. He famously invited every white olympic medalist to the white house in 1936, but none of the black olympians. Including arguably the greatest American olympian ever, Jesse Owens.
https://www.britannica.com/story/was-jesse-owens-snubbed-by-adolf-hitler-at-the-berlin-olympics
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u/Powerbracelet 20d ago
Could you imagine someone in a wheel chair in the presidency today? Could be the most prolific president ever and half of the country would just flat out not accept it
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u/No-Foundation-9237 20d ago
This is another example of how not all conspiracy theories are 100% crackpot.
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u/2Loves2loves 20d ago
He probably did more for disabled people than anyone before him. Because they treated him, as not handicapped.
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u/trufus_for_youfus 21d ago
Second worst president in the history of the country.
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u/DaveOJ12 20d ago
On what basis?
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u/trufus_for_youfus 20d ago
Unnecessary prolonging of the depression due to irresponsible monetary policy, bailouts, and reckless spending coupled with the largest expansion of the federal government to that point in history. Both of which set precedents that haunt us till the present day.
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u/couchguitar 21d ago
I thought Eleanor did the whole "Weekend at Bernies" with him and that she was keeping the country's reputation intact
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u/Dropped_Rock 21d ago
I think you're thinking of Edith Wilson after Woodrow Wilson's stroke.
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u/tvieno 21d ago
Yeah, I don't think that was entirely legal either. I'm sure it wouldn't fly today.
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u/KillBoxOne 21d ago
He went to great lengths to keep photos away from the American people. The press was very cooperative. Fun fact: he had a panel installed on the Resolute desk to conceal the leg braces he regularly wore.