50 Fun Facts About Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt was which number president of the United States?

He served from 1933 until his death in 1945, longer than anyone before or since.

How many times was Roosevelt elected president?

The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, made sure nobody could do it again.

In which New York town was Roosevelt born and later buried?

His Springwood estate there is now a National Historic Site and home to his presidential library.

Roosevelt's parents were related to each other in what way?

Franklin later married another distant cousin, Eleanor, a fifth cousin once removed.

Which student newspaper did Roosevelt edit as an undergraduate?

He was otherwise an undistinguished student and never got over being rejected by the Porcellian Club.

Who gave away the bride at Franklin and Eleanor's 1905 wedding?

Eleanor's father Elliott had died, so her uncle, the sitting president, stepped in.

How many children did Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt have?

One son, the first Franklin, died in infancy; another son was later given the same name.

Eleanor's social secretary, with whom Roosevelt began an affair in 1914, was named what?

He promised never to see her again in 1918, then resumed contact by 1941; she was with him in Georgia when he died.

Roosevelt began his political career in 1910 by winning election to which body?

He campaigned by automobile at a time when few people could afford one, and won a strongly Republican district.

As a state senator, Roosevelt led the 'Insurgents' against which political machine?

He later made peace with its boss Charles Francis Murphy after losing a 1914 Senate primary to a Tammany candidate.

Under President Wilson, Roosevelt held which post from 1913 to 1920?

His cousin Theodore had held exactly the same job before the Spanish-American War.

Roosevelt was the vice-presidential running mate of which Democratic nominee in 1920?

The Cox-Roosevelt ticket lost heavily to Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

Before the 1920 ticket, Roosevelt approached which businessman about running for president as a Democrat?

Hoover declared himself a Republican instead, and Roosevelt beat him in a landslide twelve years later.

Where was Roosevelt on holiday in August 1921 when he fell ill with the disease that paralysed his legs?

A 2003 study suggested Guillain-Barré syndrome rather than polio, but historians still use the original diagnosis.

In which Georgia town did Roosevelt spend most of his inheritance on a polio rehabilitation centre?

He died there in 1945 at the cottage known as the Little White House.

What was the name of the houseboat on which Roosevelt spent much of his time in the mid-1920s?

Its name was a mash-up of Lawrence, Roosevelt and Company, after the friend who co-owned it.

Roosevelt clashed with which powerful planner while chairing the Taconic State Park Commission?

The two men's contentious relationship continued for the rest of their careers.

By what margin was Roosevelt elected governor of New York in 1928?

He squeaked in the same year Al Smith lost the presidency in a landslide.

What did Roosevelt call the radio addresses he began giving as governor and continued as president?

He gave 30 of them as president, explaining policy directly to listeners at home.

Roosevelt broke tradition in 1932 by doing what after winning the Democratic nomination?

The trip was meant to show he was vigorous despite his disability.

Who was Roosevelt's running mate in 1932 and 1936?

Garner turned against the New Deal in the second term and challenged Roosevelt for the 1940 nomination.

Who became the first woman to hold a US cabinet post when Roosevelt named her Secretary of Labor?

She stayed in the job for his entire presidency.

Who was killed in the February 1933 assassination attempt on president-elect Roosevelt in Florida?

A woman struck the gunman, Giuseppe Zangara, with her handbag as he fired five shots.

What did Roosevelt declare on his second day in office to stop runs on the banks?

When banks reopened on March 15, stock prices rose 15 percent and over $1 billion flowed back into vaults.

Which act, signed by Roosevelt on March 22, 1933, ended Prohibition?

It legalised beer and wine before the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition entirely that December.

Which New Deal agency, Roosevelt's favourite, hired 250,000 unemployed men for rural projects?

Its enrollees eventually planted two billion trees and built 13,000 miles of trails.

Executive Order 6102 required American citizens to sell what to the US Treasury?

The official price was then raised from $20 to $35 an ounce, and the order still angers gold investors.

Which New Deal act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation?

The same law limited ties between commercial banks and securities firms.

Roosevelt insisted Social Security be funded by payroll taxes so no politician could ever do what?

His view was that contributors would gain a legal, moral and political right to their pensions.

Which New Deal agency, led by Harry Hopkins, employed over three million people in its first year?

It also set up the National Youth Administration and arts programmes for writers, actors and painters.

Which two states did Roosevelt fail to carry in his 1936 landslide?

He took a record 60.8 percent of the popular vote against Alf Landon.

FDR's 1937 'court packing' bill would add a justice for each sitting justice over what age?

Six justices qualified at the time, and the plan died with Senate leader Joseph Robinson that July.

Which 1938 law signed by Roosevelt outlawed child labour and set a federal minimum wage?

It also required overtime pay for certain employees.

Roosevelt's first-term approach of non-intervention in Latin America was known by what name?

He withdrew troops from Haiti and ended Cuba's and Panama's status as US protectorates.

Roughly how many letters and telegrams did Roosevelt and Churchill exchange, starting in September 1939?

The correspondence began while Churchill was still First Lord of the Admiralty.

In the 1940 Destroyers for Bases Agreement, how many American destroyers did Britain receive?

In exchange the US got base rights in the British Caribbean islands.

Who was the Republican nominee Roosevelt defeated when he won a third term in 1940?

Willkie later helped Roosevelt win congressional approval for Lend-Lease.

Which four freedoms did Roosevelt name in his January 1941 State of the Union address?

Norman Rockwell later turned them into four famous paintings.

Roosevelt cut off oil sales to Japan in July 1941, depriving Japan of what share of its oil supply?

The embargo convinced Japan's leaders to attack unless it was lifted.

Complete Roosevelt's phrase describing December 7, 1941: 'a date which will live in ___'.

Congress declared war on Japan the same day in a nearly unanimous vote.

What term did Roosevelt coin for the major Allied powers he expected to police the postwar world?

He meant the US, the UK, the Soviet Union and China.

At which 1943 conference did Roosevelt meet Stalin for the first time?

There the US and Britain committed to a second front in 1944, and Stalin promised to fight Japan.

Which February 1942 directive led to the internment of about 110,000 Japanese Americans?

The Supreme Court upheld it in Korematsu v. United States in 1944; Eleanor Roosevelt privately opposed it.

Which two scientists' 1939 letter warned Roosevelt about a possible German atomic bomb?

Roosevelt never told Truman about the resulting Manhattan Project; the new president learned of it only after taking office.

Whom did Roosevelt personally prefer as his 1944 running mate before accepting Harry Truman?

Byrnes ran the Office of War Mobilization and was nicknamed the 'assistant president'.

What were Roosevelt's last recorded words, spoken while sitting for a portrait on April 12, 1945?

He died of a massive cerebral haemorrhage a few hours later, aged 63.

Roosevelt's leadership of which charity is one reason his face has been on the American dime since 1946?

The charity began as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which he organised in 1938.

How many times was Roosevelt named Time magazine's Person of the Year?

He is the only president to have won it thrice: 1932, 1934 and 1941.

Which actor played Roosevelt in the 2012 film about his relationship with his cousin Daisy Suckley?

The film drew on Suckley's private diaries, discovered only after her death.

Which Boston heiress turned down Roosevelt's marriage proposal during his second year at Harvard?

He then courted his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor, and proposed to her in 1903.