Day of Infamy Speech

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as 32nd president of the United States of America. The New York Democrat was the only US president to serve more than two terms in office, beginning with his election in 1933 and ending with his death in 1945. During that time, he is credited with guiding the country through the Great Depression, remaking the federal government through his New Deal, and shepherding the US through most of WWII. Late in the war, FDR, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin negotiated the foundations of the United Nations, an intergovernmental organization that FDR hoped would resolve future world problems.

FDR was born in Hyde Park, New York. His parents came from wealthy, socially prominent New York families, and he was distantly related to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. After graduating from Harvard, where he studied economics and edited the Harvard Crimson newspaper, FDR studied law at Columbia and began working as a lawyer. By then he had also married Eleanor Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt’s niece and another distant relation. The couple had five surviving children, but FDR’s repeated affairs strained their marriage.