Franklin Roosevelt Documentary - Biography of the life of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

[Music] you the man known to history as Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in the town of High Park New York on the 30th of January 1882 his father James Roosevelt was a Harvard graduate and successful businessman who had interests and investments in various coal and transport companies and also had connections with the Democratic Party serving as the minister's secretary at the American Embassy to Great Britain in the 1850s under the then ambassador an eventual 15th president of the United States James Buchanan Franklin's mother Sarah and Delano whose ancestors came to America on the Mayflower had married James in 1880 and was a driven and intelligent woman his father Warren had once operated an opium business in Hong Kong where she lived for three years and at one stage Sarah also attended a girl school in the German city of Dresden in the modern world Sarah would have undoubtedly had a successful career of her own but she was forced by the social constraints of the time to be a homemaker which perhaps inevitably caused her to place much of her hopes for the future in Franklin as he was her only child with her husband James Franklin himself was an active child who also proved to be intelligent and gifted and almost anything he undertook and he soon became adept in the sporting activities of his class such as horse riding shooting tennis golf and polo instead of allowing the family servants to educate Franklin as was the convention of the time Sarah chose to educate her son during his early years until he was eventually sent to Groton boarding school in Massachusetts the headmaster of this school Endicott Peabody would prove to be an important guiding influence on Franklin over the coming years teaching him the importance of Christian charity and would later go on to officiate at Roosevelt's wedding in 1905 in 1900 Franklin's father James Roosevelt died which was a devastating blow for him but despite this his prospects then improved a year later when his cousin Theodore Roos felt was elected President of the United States and his commanding and energetic leadership soon made him Franklin's new role model it was around this time that Franklin enrolled at Harvard College in Cambridge Massachusetts at which he failed to shine academically and stated later that he studied economics for four years and everything he had been taught was incorrect despite him not enjoying his time at Harvard Franklin graduated regardless in 1903 with an A B in history and then after dropping out of law school in 1908 joined the Wall Street firm of Carter and led yard and Milburn working in the company's Admiralty law division in 1902 Franklin began to caught his distant cousin Eleanor whom he had known since childhood and after spending several years reaffirming their ties by means of family meetings and correspondence Franklin successfully proposed in 1904 Eleanor herself was the youngest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt's brother Elliott his branch of the Roosevelt family had split from Franklin's in the 17th century in the shape of Nicholas Roose felt who is Franklin's fourth great-grandfather and Eleanor's fifth great-grandfather the couple were then married on the 17th of March 1905 despite fierce opposition from Franklin's mother Sarah who thought her son was too young to marry and at the ceremony Eleanor's uncle President Theodore Roosevelt gave her away as her father Eliot had died in 1894 both Franklin and Eleanor then moved to the ruse felt family estate at Springwood in Hyde Park at which Eleanor had to endure the difficulty of living next door to her mother-in-law and the couple then went on to parent six children together one of whom Franklin Jr died in infancy in 1909 despite giving birth to six children Elinor found married life to be difficult in many respects and at one point stated that she found intercourse to be an ordeal that had to be endured and this lack of natural intimacy would later result in Franklin having numerous Affairs and Eleanor herself would also go on to form close and possibly intimate friendships with a number of women perhaps the most notorious of Franklin's affairs was with his wife secretary Lucy Mercer which began in or around 1916 that Eleanor then discovered when she found letters between the two by accident which nearly ended their marriage and it was only after Franklin's mother stepped in and told him that if he divorced Eleanor she would disinherit him that the Union was spared despite this tumult both Franklin and Eleanor would remain married until his death in 1945 but perhaps as a consequence of his extramarital liaisons he remained a union based on mutual respect or duty rather than love or passion however regardless Eleanor made Franklin promise that he would never see Lucy again which was an oath that he would struggle to keep in 1910 Franklin joined the local Democratic Party which was eager to recruit him due to his family's name and after being accepted and nominated Roos felt campaigned for a seat on New York state assembly and after leading an energetic campaign in which he traveled around the local area by car Franklin won to the surprise of many despite the local area being predominantly Republican and he then assumed his new responsibilities on the 1st of January 1911 Roos felt then quickly gained a reputation as something of a radical within the local Democratic Party leading a group of so called insurgents who were opposed to Tammany Hall which was a political organization in the area that controlled nominations and dictated policy and had a reputation for corruption or looking after the interests of the rich and not the working classes or poor because of this Franklin soon became a popular figure with many New York Democrats and he then in the 1911 Democratic nominations caused controversy within his family when he backed Woodrow Wilson and not his cousin Theodore Roosevelt's campaign for the presidency of the United States Theodore had left the Republicans after failing to secure the party's nomination to campaign during the forthcoming election which cause divisions within the party and he then ran as an independent candidate for a newly created and sure live Progressive Party despite him failing to secure his cousin's backing Theodore was not angered by Franklin supporter Woodrow Wilson as he was after all a member of the Democratic Party which he would have been forced to resign from in order to support him and it could be said that this was in hindsight the correct decision as Theodore's progressives fell into obscurity over the coming years Franklin's decision to back Woodrow Wilson was then vindicated when he won the presidential election of 1912 becoming the first Democratic president since Grover Cleveland who left office in 1889 this election victory was a landslide for the Democrats who won nearly 42% of the popular vote Andrews felt was then rewarded for his support of Wilson by the new president appointing him to be assistant secretary of the Navy in 1913 under Josephus Daniels shortly after this appointment Franklin resigned from his seat on new york state assembly in order to concentrate on his career in washington DC as he was seen by many to have a promising future ahead of him due to his intelligence work ethic and family name during their time in the department both Roosevelt and Daniel's oversaw the introduction of a new merit-based system of promotion within the United States Navy as well as extending civilian control over various aspects of naval administration in which Franklin oversaw relations between the government and the members of the Navy's civilian workforce this position would give Franklin a great amount of experience in dealing with labor issues as well as industrial disputes and also in naval administration during wartime that would both prove to be invaluable to him during the later Great Depression as well as the Second World War and it was this period as assistant secretary there forged his affiliation and love for the American Navy that would endure for the rest of his days in 1914 war broke out in Europe and there was a strong consensus of opinion that the United States should begin to rearm in case it was forced to join the conflict and as a result President Wilson then gave the go-ahead for an expansion of the Navy there was accelerated after the sinking of various civilian vessels including the RMS Lusitania in 1915 because of this the United States Navy was more than doubled in size by the end of World War one that ended after America joined the Allies against the Central Powers of Germany and Austria which greatly hastened their ultimate surrender in the Armistice of 1918 and after the conflict the US Navy was scaled back to peacetime numbers in the aftermath of the First World War President Wilson attempted to ensure lasting peace throughout the globe by establishing the League of Nations which was first proposed and included as part of the Treaty of Versailles that was signed on the 28th of June 1919 creating the first international convent designed primarily to maintain world peace however the creation of the League of Nations greatly weakened Wilson's position as president in the eyes of many Americans particularly those of a Republican persuasion who feared their country's sovereignty could potentially be superseded by an international governing body and who were also opposed to any American involvement in the affairs of foreign nations this opposition then continued to gain momentum until finally the Republican dominated Senate rejected the president's plans for America to join the League of Nations and Wilson's position was then further undermined by him suffering a massive stroke on the 2nd of October 1919 that left him bedridden for weeks and his administration much like himself paralyzed it is no exaggeration to say that Woodrow Wilson's policies at least in regard to Foreign Affairs provided a template for Franklin Roosevelt's own political ideas over the coming decades as he would after the Second World War resurrect his mentor's plans for a League of Nations in the shape of the United Nations as it was now becoming increasingly evident that President Wilson's tenure was coming to an end Roosevelt and his allies reached out to Herbert Hoover about the possibility of him becoming the party's next candidate for the presidency in the 1920 presidential elections Hoover had formerly been a member of President Wilson's administration but had never been a member of either party in the lead-up to the election of 1920 but then calculating that the Democrats were unlikely to be victorious declared himself as a Republican but failed to secure the party's nomination from the presidency by losing to warren g harding this in turn scuppered Franklin's plans to run as vice president under Hoover but after James M Cox was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate instead he chose Roosevelt as his running mate and despite both men embarking on a campaign across the country they were defeated by a wide margin in the election by warren g harding who became the 29th president of the united states on the 4th of march 1921 the return of the republicans to power simultaneously heralded a return of America to isolationism in which involvement in foreign affairs was kept to a minimum until finally the sleeping giant that was the United States of America was awoken from its slumber by the rise of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the mid 1930s although this loss was a bitter pill to swallow Rosevelt had gained valuable experience in campaigning on the national stage and was now a major figure within the Democratic Party and was also seen by many to be the great hope of the left-wing within America going forward however Franklin's hopes and dreams would soon be dashed ania smithereens when he in August 1921 began to experience terrifying symptoms of paralysis from the waist down combined with bladder and bowel dysfunction the diagnosis for these ailments was grim to say the least as Franklin had contracted polio myelitis otherwise known as polio which is an infectious disease caused by the polio virus that has often transferred from person to person by infected fecal matter entering the mouth possibly via unwashed food or unclean water there has since been speculation that Roosevelt's symptoms were more consistent with Julian berry syndrome which is caused by the immune system attacking the peripheral nervous system which in short is the relay between the brain and the limbs but whatever the cause of his illness Franklin was now paralyzed from the waist down and would never walk or even stand unaided again this illness would have ended the lives of many men let alone their careers however rusev out evidently possessed great reserves of strength and determination as he then set about trying to leave as normal a life as possible to ultimately facilitate his return to mainstream politics he did this by having the pedals of his car adapted so he could brake and accelerate by hand and even had a pair of iron braces constructed to enable him to stand or walk with assistance where he would use his waist to swivel each limb in turn enabling him to move upright for short distances despite these innovations Franklin would spend the majority was waking hours sitting in one of his custom-built wheelchairs meaning that he would often have to be carried up and down flights of stairs in buildings when no elevators were installed and this soon prompted him to have a service lift adapted at his home in Hyde Park which enabled him to travel between floors unaided over the coming years Franklin would go to great lengths to ensure he was never publicly photographed in his wheelchair and would when he was giving speeches or appearing in public often be seen to stand by using his steel leg braces along with the literal support of an aide or one of his children for the time being at least rusev outs illness meant that he had to withdraw from front-line politics for a time during the 1920s so he could come to terms with his disability both mentally and physically but despite this retreat he still maintained close connections with the top of the Democratic Party for which he would eventually give presidential nomination speeches in 1924 and 1928 although these speeches were outwardly a show of support for the Democratic nominees they were in reality dress rehearsals for Franklin's own political resurrection as he calculated that he could not hope to win any future Democratic nomination let alone the presidency without being seen to be able to stand and during both addresses he wowed the crowds whilst gripping the podium with all his strength in a desperate effort to remain upright this effort to appear mobile was in large part due to Franklin's fear that his disability would be used against him by his Republican rivals whom he thought would claim his inability to walk would also impair his ability to govern and it is certainly remarkable that throughout his lifetime and his later presidency the true nature of Roosevelt's disability would remain unknown to the vast majority of the American public who thought him requiring assistance to walk was due to him being lame or Arthur etic despite Franklin's public support the Democrats were defeated in the presidential elections by the Republicans in both 1924 and 1928 largely due to the fact that the economy was booming and also because the party was divided on various issues such as prohibition that banned the production and consumption of alcohol from 1920 to 1933 indeed Roosevelt himself like many men of his class enjoyed drinking expensive cocktails which along with chain-smoking would become his guilty pleasures in the lead-up to the 1928 election Al Smith who was the Democratic nominee for the presidency was forced to step down as governor of New York as he could not by law hold the position as well as the presidency meaning that an election had to be held to appoint a new governor as a consequence Smith fearing a Republican landslide then asked Roosevelt to run as the Democratic candidate for the governorship of New York and after a hard-fought campaign Franklin was eventually triumphant winning by the slender margin of 1% of the vote making him the head of government in America's most popular state and a front-runner for the next Democratic presidential nomination in 1932 in contrast to this the Democrats and Al Smith were crushed in the presidential election losing heavily to Herbert Hoover which effectively ended Smith's ambitions of claiming the top job and he would later go on to become the president of Empire State incorporated which was the company responsible for the construction of the marvel of architecture and engineering that is the Empire State Building in Manhattan then on Tuesday the 29th of October 1929 the Wall Street Crash sent the world's economy into turmoil causing share prices of the New York Stock Exchange to collapse this crash was primarily caused by a huge amount of speculative public investment being made in the US stock market during the late 1920s in which millions of Americans invested their life savings into the stock market in the hope of making a fortune by buying shares in what they hoped were up-and-coming companies and all commodities to cash in on this boom of investment many people even took out loans in order to buy more stocks and shares and when no further loans could be obtained they then brought stocks on an iou basis in the hope that they would be able to pay at a later date as and when they made a profit another factor was corruption and insider dealing which was undertaken by men such as Joseph P Kennedy the father of President John F Kennedy who during the 1920s sought to buy worthless stocks on mass which made them appear to be a good speculative investment to the untrained eye this mass buying then inflated the price of these stocks and shares which Kennedy and his like would then cash in on by selling them to inexperienced investors such as the general public who would in the end lose nearly all their money when the stock market crashed Kennedy would later go on to make millions during the Great Depression itself by buying up potentially valuable real estate and land at reduced prices that he would then later sell when the market improved over the coming decades which at least in part funded his family's rise to power in u.s. politics no one knows what actually triggered the massive selling of stocks that initiated the Wall Street Crash but historians and economists have since speculated that a combination of rumor hearsay and the spread of panic caused a chain reaction of mass selling that flooded the market and as a result caused stock prices to tumble a millions of dollars to be lost it should also be noted that the Wall Street Crash was not the direct cause of the following Great Depression but it certainly did undermine the confidence of the American public in the country's financial institutions particularly the banks as well as the government and Federal Reserve indeed although many of America's smaller local banks were still solvent and soundly run the larger banks had during the market boom of the 1920s invested their customers investors and depositors money into the US stock market meaning that when the crash came the bank's lost millions of dollars of their customers money that they were unable to give back due to the lack of funds this meant that the banks were soon forced to deny cash withdrawals to the American public which caused a panic driven chain reaction or bank run across America and then the wider world as millions of people rushed to withdraw their non-existent savings this lack of cash flow inevitably crippled consumer spending as well as lending meaning that there were mass shortages of capital within the American economy and as a result businesses laid off workers in their millions or closed all together and as America was the largest economy on earth the contagion spread across the globe as international loans were recalled in the desperate search for money and private investment was slashed the recall of these international loans inevitably devastated the economies of countries around the world who was still struggling to recover from the devastation of the first world war particularly nations such as Germany Italy and Japan who then saw a rise in radical nationalistic political parties who would seize power over the coming decade and plunge mankind into another world war this panic and lack of capital was then further compounded by President Herbert Hoover's administration itself as it thought the crisis would be short-lived and therefore refused point blank to stimulate the economy with quantitative easing which involved the printing of money that would enable the banks to stay open and lending an investment to continue the government then arguably made things worse by raising tariffs on international trade which did nothing but damaged businesses across America and around the world as he only restricted international transactions as well as the flow of goods The Wall Street Crash and following Great Depression inevitably damaged Herbert Hoover's reputation particularly concerning economic matters and with the end of his term fast approaching Franklin Roosevelt stepped up his plans to run for the Democratic nomination for the presidential election in 1932 to help secure his future candidacy Roosevelt first sought re-election as governor of New York by enacting and advocating various reforms to alleviate the crisis such as setting up an employment commission endorsing unemployment insurance and aid to farmers as well as better pensions for the elderly these policies clearly resonated with New York's population as he then won the state election by a 14% margin over his Republican rival which solidified his position as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for the presidency during the following months Roosevelt appointed his campaign team and ramped up his plans for the forthcoming Democratic National Convention of 1932 at which he clinched the party's nomination by defeating Al Smith who came a distant second Roosevelt then along with his running mate for the vice presidency John nice Ghana launched his presidential campaign in which he pledged his support for America's workers who are promising better regulation of the economy stock market and banking system along with the cutting of trade tariffs financial help for farmers and investment in public works in order to end the Great Depression Franklin then went on to defeat Herbert Hoover by a massive landslide in the 1932 presidential election by winning 57% of the popular vote and crucially securing control of both houses of Congress meaning that he was able to pass legislation with greater ease without Republican interference Franklin Delano Roosevelt was then inaugurated as the 32nd President of the United States on the 4th of March 1933 in which he gave one of the most famous speeches in American history stating so first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself nameless unreasoning unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance the israelian cry was important as the American economy had slumped to new lows in the final months of the Hoover administration making the task that now face Roosevelt enough to vex a genius as one quarter of the workforce was unemployed and a further two million people were on the streets and in the state of near-starvation on top of this food prices had fallen by nearly 60 percent meaning that many farmers were now facing ruin and tens of thousands of banks were refusing cash withdrawals which meant the businesses could not pay their employees and families could not buy food or goods during his tenure as state governor of New York rusev L gave regular radio broadcast direct into people's homes that he named his fireside chats in which he would lay out his plans for governance or address issues and after becoming president Franklin then continued these broadcasts on a national scale informing the population of what he planned to do to address the economic turmoil almost immediately upon assuming his role as president Roosevelt sought to address the paralysis that was gripping the banking system when he on the 9th of March 1933 passed the emergency Banking Act they gave him power to control bank opening times and also enabled him to order the Federal Reserve to issue currency so that cash withdrawals could recommence this action then had the desired effect as six days later on the 15th of March the banks reopened causing share prices to rise by 15% as a consequence as public deposits and withdrawals resumed which effectively ended the bank run after this Roosevelt then initiated his program of relief recovery and reform as part of his strategy for ending the Great Depression which is known today as the New Deal he started by setting up the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in May of 1933 that was established to provide assistance to state governments by means of loans as well as grounds so that they could relieve unemployment through public work programs the president then later that year signed a repeal that brought an end to Prohibition largely in an effort to help stimulate the economy and increase tax revenue along with the people's morale and shortly after signing the repeal Franklin stated that he thought this would be a good time for a beer these reforms were also augmented by the setting up of the Public Works Administration that would come to spend nearly seven billion dollars over the next decade which is a massive figure in today's money by initiating infrastructure projects throughout the country from roads to railways to dams and schools this glut of state investment was then further increased by the establishment of further agencies including the Civilian Conservation Corp eration that got 250,000 young men back into work or more local rural projects as well as the reconstruction Finance Corporation which helped industry with funding for railroads along with large infrastructure projects on top of this the Federal Trade Commission helped farmers and homeowners with mortgage relief and the Agricultural Adjustment Act aimed to raise commodity prices by paying farmers to reduce their food production by leaving fields bare and cutting back on livestock to ensure workers were better paid and fairly treated going forward the president then brought in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 there was enacted to regulate industry and ensure fair wages for workers and also restricted production to keep prices at an even level as well as all this Roosevelt sought to cut federal spending by slashing military expenditure by over 700 million dollars by restricting servicemen's pensions but after a campaign was instigated by veterans lobby groups Congress overruled him and paid out the pension benefits in cash regardless which in the end gave the economy a further boost through consumer spending then from 1935 to 1936 the Roosevelt administration enacted the second part of his plans for relief and reform that is known today as the second New Deal which by and large consisted of further public investment were more importantly focused on economic reform across various sectors these included the 1935 Social Security Act that ensured the federal government was from then on bound by law to give aid to the elderly the unemployed and the disabled as well as children in need which was augmented with a kind of base state health care provision to ensure the poor had a certain degree of medical care there then came the Works Progress Administration which was the largest public works program to date that funded the building of parks schools bridges and roads in nearly every community across the country and between 1935 and 1943 the WPA employed nearly nine million people whose wages would then buy food and consumer goods that in turn pump money back into the economy producing the knock-on effect of generating new jobs next came the National Labor Relations Act that prevented the exploitation of workers by giving them fair working conditions as well as pay and also ensured that the Industrial Disputes the strikes did not occur through civil discourse between employers and employee unions although ruse felts New Deal did produces desired effect in getting millions of Americans back into work it was met with fierce resistance within certain quarters of the private sector as well as the Republican establishment who were opposed to any kind of state intervention in the economy and there is still a fierce debate today as to whether the centralized power of the Roosevelt administration was in keeping with America's capitalist two principles and some even claim that his program of reforms and relief was socialist in its outlook one of the most ardent critics of Roosevelt's policies during this period was his old political ally Al Smith who as a conservative Democrat was opposed to the president interference in private industry and during the lead-up to the 1936 presidential election Smith tried to portray ruse felt as a communist in all but name and even compared him to Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin but Smith's public criticism soon backfired in spectacular fashion as ruse felts reforms had lifted millions of people out of poverty and meant that he now had the loyal support of the majority of the American public as well as the country's unions who saw Al Smith and the business leaders opposed to the New Deal as the kind of people who had caused the economic upheaval in the first place seeking to capitalize on his overwhelming approval ratings Roosevelt then sought re-election as president in 1936 and won an unprecedented victory by securing all but two states which was the largest margin of victory since the uncontested presidential election of eighteen twenty rule felt second term was largely dominated by him struggling to overcome the resistance of the US Supreme Court that had blocked or halted several of his New Deal reforms and he then sought to end its opposition by proposing a bill to replace aging Supreme Court justices with his own supporters which was subsequently blocked by a cross-party coalition who feared that ruse felts bill would make both he and his successors too powerful indeed one of the criticisms that could be leveled at Franklin Roosevelt is that he was too controlling of his administration as he was notoriously devious and conniving in his dealings and famously once said that he never let his right hand know what his left hand was doing this control and secrecy even extended to his last vice president Harry Truman he was kept in the dark about many of Roosevelt's plans during World War two including the United States nuclear weapons program however one of the few people Franklin was unable to control in his life was his wife Eleanor who consistently lobbied him throughout his presidency on matters that were close to her heart such as help for the poor as well as civil and women's rights that she promoted during public appearances and radio broadcasts and even held nearly 350 press conferences during her husband's tenure Eleanor would also spend much of her time traveling the country after which she would report back to her husband on the progress of his New Deal and it is fair to say that her activism certainly aided her husband knew after all could not travel easily as she would after returning from her visits briefed the president at length on the situation across the country and what action she felt will required this inevitably caused a great deal of friction between Franklin and Eleanor during his presidency although on the whole they came to form a formidable political partnership that earned them both the respect and admiration of millions of Americans by the late 1930s there were growing concerns at the rise of Adolf Hitler's Germany in Europe which was seeking to expand its borders by annexing neighboring countries such as Austria and Czechoslovakia that's along with the aggressive expansion of the Japanese Empire in Manchuria modern-day China was starting to threaten world peace the United States foreign policy had since the end of the First World War been isolationist in his outlook because many people within the country did not want to interfere in any costly European Wars which was further complicated by large portions of the US population being descendants of European immigrants from countries like Germany and Italy Roosevelt who was a believer in Woodrow Wilson's outward-looking policies was not an isolationist himself but as his hands were largely tied by Congress and public opinion he was prevented from interfering in the Spanish Civil War and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the late 1930s this outlook then began to change however when Hitler broke his Munich agreement with Britain and France that had allowed Germany to occupy the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in 1938 by invading the rest of the country the following year on the 15th of March 1939 this prompted Roosevelt to begin preparations for a possible war with the Axis powers over the coming months as he recognized that America could no longer afford to maintain his isolationist stance particularly as Japan was evidently bent on expansion of its own in the South Pacific which could in time potentially threaten the United States colonies in the region such as the Philippines then when Hitler invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany which prompted rusev el to align himself with the Western Allies and then when France itself fell to Germany in the summer of 1940 isolationism in the United States went into a steep decline which garnered enough support to allow the President to sanction a massive increase in military spending along with the country's first peacetime draft that would swell the ranks of the u.s. army to nearly one and a half million men by 1941 Roosevelt also proved to be pragmatic in his choice of military advisors at this time as he appointed Republican interventionists such as Henry Stimson and Frank Knox as his secretaries of war and the Navy respectively both of whom were in favor of his support of Britain after the fall of France and as both men were not Democrats their promotions helped win over many Republicans to the president's side the president then increased his support of Britain and his new Prime Minister Winston Churchill with whom he had been in regular correspondence with since the 1930s by giving the Royal Navy 50 World War 1 destroyers in return for access to naval bases across the Caribbean which proved to be invaluable in strengthening ties between the two nations as well as the United Kingdom's naval defenses Roosevelt had before this sought to help the European allies by passing the Neutrality Act in November 1939 that allowed the sale of US weapons in return for cash however this aid to Britain free France China and later the Soviet Union would be escalated into the 50 billion dollar program of aid that is known today as lend-lease which was passed into law in March of 1941 that allowed war materials and resources to be lent or leased to Allied nations under the pretext that doing so would aid US national security although it was traditional for u.s. presidents to only serve to ten years in office as the two-term period was not yet enshrined within the US Constitution because the United States was clearly entering into another period of crisis Roosevelt then decided to campaign for re-election that resulted in him winning and um dented third-term on November the 5th 1940 in which he won nearly 55 percent of the popular vote and 38 of the then 48 states although the head of the Japanese state was its Emperor Hirohito the country's government had since the devastation of the Great Depression much like Germany come under the control of militaristic nationalists who advocated the rejection of democracy along with Western liberal culture and sought to end Japan's dependence on foreign imports of raw materials by means of the creation of an Asian Pacific Empire the first stage of this expansion took place in 1931 with Japan's invasion of Manchuria which was then followed six years later by his annexation of China in 1937 that prompted the United States and Russa felt to halt all exports of material from America that could aid the Japanese war effort which included nearly 95% of Japan's oil supply this essentially forced the Japanese to choose between halting their expansion or escalating it the form of which was not an option therefore plans were put into place for further invasions and attacks on territories and islands across South Asia as well as the western Pacific including British imperial outposts along with US colonies in the Philippines the Japanese now saw the nullification and subjugation of both Britain's Eastern Empire and America's Pacific colonies and naval bases as key to securing the supremacy over the region and it was also decided that the United States Pacific Fleet based in Hawaii would have to be destroyed in order to ensure navy supremacy in the Far East and plans were then drawn up in the late 1930s to bring this about the likelihood of war was then increased by the appointment of Hideki Tojo as Prime Minister of Japan on the 17th of October 1941 who had long advocated a preemptive strike against the United States and over the following months preparations were finalized with the Emperor's approval by the commander and chief of the Japanese Navy is aruku Yamamoto for a massive naval task force to attack the u.s. naval base at Pearl Harbor along with simultaneous invasions of British and American colonies overseas stations in the western Pacific in the meantime negotiations were attempted with the aim of preventing hostilities but when the Americans demanded a full Japanese withdrawal from China in return for the re-establishment of trade the decision was taken by the Japanese to initiate war with the United States on the 26th of November 1941 a massive task force set sail from the Japanese home islands under the command of Admiral chichi Nagumo and headed east across the Northern Pacific before turning south towards the Hawaiian archipelago this fleet consisted of six aircraft carriers the Akagi carga sorry you hear EU shukaku and xue Kaku which carried over 400 aircraft and were escorted by two battleships three cruisers nine destroyers and twenty-three submarines the Japanese then continued to approach a ye and finally attack the islands on the morning of the 7th of December 1941 resulting in over a dozen US ships being sunk or badly damaged including eight battleships and over 2,000 servicemen and civilians being killed or injured however the prime targets of the Japanese the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise Lexington and Saratoga were out of port at the time of the attack which was of vital importance as these carriers were later form the nucleus of the United States Pacific Fleet that would come to decimate the Japanese Navy over the coming months and years one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt declared war on Imperial Japan and the same day delivered a speech to a joint session of the US Congress stating that yesterday December 7 1941 a date that will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan three days later on the 11th of December 1941 Germany and Italy joined with their Japanese allies and declared war on the United States that in effect sealed their doom as the world's richest and most powerful industrial nation had now joined the conflict with whom the Axis powers could not hope to compete this overwhelming might did not take long to manifest itself as little more than six months after Pearl Harbor in June of 1942 the United States Navy along with the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise engaged and defeated the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway in the South Pacific in which all four of the Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk meaning that the country's offensive capability in the Pacific Theater was effectively ended in one fell swoop the Japanese were from this point onwards forced onto the defensive across the Pacific and the Americans then started their operations against the European Axis powers when they landed in North Africa in late 1942 culminating in over 300,000 access troops surrendering in Tunisia six months later which came only a few months after Hitler had lost a further half a million troops in the Battle of Stalingrad on the Eastern Front the main reason for these Allied victories were not simply their advantages in sheer manpower but also lay in the colossal industrial capability the United States possessed as between 1941 and the end of the war in 1945 the Americans produced nearly two and a half million trucks 90,000 tanks and in 1944 alone produced more aircraft than Britain Germany Japan and the Soviet Union combined this industrial might combined with plentiful natural resources were the key to the American and Allied victory during World War two as both Germany and Japan's natural resources were pitiful in comparison and their industrial capacity was a mere fraction of the United States alone although Roosevelt decided that the war against Hitler's Germany was to be given priority over Japan the Americans were still able after the Battle of Midway to steadily retake all of the Japanese conquests in the South Pacific in a succession of hard-fought and fibia SACEUR over the coming years until by 1945 Japan was cut off surrounded and starving in the lead-up to the opening of the second front in Europe President Roosevelt had advocated that any Allied invasion should take place via northern France where as Winston Churchill in contrast argued that any invasion should be conducted through the Italian peninsula stating that the country was Hitler's soft underbelly however the Italian theater in reality turned out to be Hitler's tough old gut as the country's hilly terrain naturally favored the defensive therefore the Americans assertion that the major allied invasion should be conducted through France can in hindsight be said to have been the correct course of action as it resulted in a relatively speedy advance through Normandy after the d-day landings ensuring that Western Europe was not overrun by the Soviets after Germany's collapse despite Roosevelt's disability it soon became evident during late 1942 that a conference was needed between the leaders of the Allied powers in order to better coordinate the war and as the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin refused to travel far from Moscow the decision was taken for both Churchill Stalin and Roosevelt to meet in the Iranian capital of Tehran in late November of 1943 this involved Roosevelt having to travel over 7,000 miles from America to the Middle East which took a massive toll on his health and at the conference he sought to appease the Soviet premier by distancing himself from Winston Churchill over the future of Eastern Europe as he did not want Stalin to think that the Americans and the British were acting as a unified force this involve Roosevelt refusing to partake in discussions regarding the post-war status of Poland as he felt there were more pressing concerns and seeing as the Soviets were bound to occupy the country over the coming months Roosevelt calculated that it was more important to appease the Soviet premier rather than alienate him this cordial approach towards the Soviet premier is illustrated by Roosevelt's response to Stalin's demand that 50,000 German officers should be shot after the war to which the president jokingly replied that maybe 49,000 would be enough that was met with outrage and disbelief from the British prime minister in the end Churchill's approach to world Starling would prove to be correct as Eastern Europe was subjected to nearly half a century of Soviet occupation after World War Two therefore it would perhaps be argued that Roosevelt's cordial attitude towards the Soviet Union was misguided however the Tehran conference and the 14 thousand mile round trip that it entailed had a devastating effect on Roosevelt's health as he had been under massive stress for over a decade by this time which was in no doubt down to the fact that during his presidency America had been in an almost constant state of crisis a chain-smoker Rousseff felt her enjoyed a daily diet of fine food in cocktails for many years but as he was unable to undertake regular exercise it soon became apparent that his lifestyle and workload was taking its toll which would later be further exasperated by him embarking on an even longer journey to meet with Stalin and Churchill in the crimean city of Yalta in February of 1945 as a result of his visible deterioration Roosevelt then underwent tests at Bethesda hospital Maryland in March of 1944 and was found to the great alarm of his attending doctor to have incredibly high blood pressure that at one point hit 240 over 130 I was also found to be suffering from coronary artery disease and heart failure effectively meaning his time was short to avert imminent disaster Roosevelt undertook a period of rest and recuperation over the coming months in which he cut down his smoking to a dozen cigarettes a day as well as a single cocktail in the evenings after meals and during this period spent some weeks fishing with friends and after returning to the White House only worked for four hours per day another source of comfort for Franklin during this time was the rekindling of his relationship with his former flame Lucy Mercer who had married after the breakup of her affair with Franklin nearly 20 years before but was now widowed and their reunion was instigated by Roosevelt's daughter Anna who organized them to see one another again behind her mother's back this was perhaps because Eleanor and Franklin were not close as husband and wife by this stage as the active more like close friends or political allies rather than a couple therefore a nasaw to alleviate her father stress as well as his loneliness by helping him to see Lucy once again however later after his death Eleanor discovered that Franklin had been seeing Lucy with her daughter's help resulting in them not speaking to one another for some time it was evident by late 1944 that the Americans were going to be victorious on all fronts in World War two and despite being advised not to by those close to him due to his ill health Roosevelt decided to campaign for a fourth term as president in November of 1944 from which he emerged victorious once again by claiming over 53% of the popular vote and winning 36 of the 48 states making him by far the longest serving president in American history in early 1939 top scientists such as Albert Einstein had written to Roosevelt warning him of Germany's possible nuclear weapons program and shortly afterwards the United States initiated the Manhattan Project with the help of many German Jewish scientists that had fled the country during the 1930s this program eventually bought fruit on the 16th of July 1945 when the first nuclear weapon codenamed Trinity was successfully detonated in New Mexico and three weeks later the United States dropped to further atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th of August 1945 prompting Emperor Hirohito to announce his country's surrender on the 15th of August this weapon more than anything made the United States the world's most powerful country after 1945 and until the Soviets developed their own nuclear weapons in 1949 the country was practically invulnerable as a nation as it now had along with the atom bomb the largest Navy Air Force and economy the world had ever seen one of Franklin Roosevelt's lasting legacies was his resurrection of the League of Nations in the shape of the United Nations the formation of which had first been agreed between the president and Winston Churchill as early as 1941 and was finally brought into being in San Francisco on the 25th of April 1945 at which the UN Charter was drafted which bound all the participating nations to certain standards of human rights as well as the preservation of peace for future generations over the coming years Eleanor Roosevelt would also play a key role in the founding of the United Nations when she was invited by her husband's successor President Harry Truman to become a delegate to the General Assembly after 1945 in which she chaired the committee that came to pass the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and will continue to take an active role in politics and humanitarian issues until her own death in 1962 the United Nations was in many ways the zenith of President Roosevelt's political career in which he had brought America out of the depression overseen his victory in World War two and in the United Nations formed an international body whose aim was to prevent a reoccurrence of the massive bloodshed and suffering that had plagued mankind in the first half of the 20th century however Roosevelt would never live to see the world he did so much to form as on the 12th of April 1945 while sitting having his portrait painted at his retreat the little White House in Warm Springs Georgia the president complained of a terrific headache and soon afterwards lost consciousness and slumped forward in his chair he was then rushed to his bedroom at which he was diagnosed as having suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and a few hours later at 3:35 p.m. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died aged just 63 it is no exaggeration to say that many Americans were left in despair at the president's passing as to millions of people he was a savior that had not only delivered the country from the greatest recession of the 20th century but had also crushed Imperial Japan as well as Nazi Germany in the largest and most destructive war the world had yet seen a day after his passing the president's coffin draped in the star-spangled banner was taken to Washington DC and progressed through the streets of the capital lined with thousands of mourners before being taken by train to his birthplace at Hyde Park where he was laid to rest in the Rose Garden of his Springwood estate where he along with his wife Eleanor remains to this very day Franklin Delano Roosevelt is today considered by many American historians to be one of if not the greatest president in the history of the United States of America although he certainly enjoyed a privileged upbringing in his early years of life there is no doubt that he possessed immense reserves of strength and bravery to overcome the paralyzing disease that his polio and for him to then go on to become president let alone one of the greatest presidents in US history is nothing short of extraordinary and stands as a testament to his strength of character as well as his intelligence and ability many critics of Roosevelt's New Deal have since his death claimed that his programs of relief and reform were far too liberal or even socialist in their outlook as they increased the size and power of the federal US state which in some people's eyes is at odds with the founding principles of the US Constitution his defenders would argue however that his reforms were simply necessary measures in a time of crisis that lifted millions out of unemployment as well as abject poverty and said the United States firmly on a course for a period of prosperity and wealth that was hitherto unparalleled in human history what virtually all people can agree on however is that Franklin Roosevelt successfully guided America through the greatest war in human history from which emerged as the world's most powerful country therefore it is difficult to argue against the assertion that America was stronger as a nation both internally and externally after his presidency than it was before it what is also certain is that Franklin Delano Roosevelt is one of the most important figures in the entire 20th century as his presidency shaped the geopolitical landscape of the entire world four decades after his death and in many ways his life and career form the world we all of us live in today what do you think of Franklin Roosevelt was his New Deal a socialist program that increased the power of the American state or was he a hero who despite not being able to stand himself lifted the American people from their knees and set the United States on a course to greatness let us know in the comments section and until next time thank you very much for watching you

Channel: The People Profiles

Views: 143,979

Rating: 4.7740231 out of 5

Keywords: Biography, History, Profile, Educational, Education, Biographical, Bio

Id: ta3bTgHYQ0I

Length: 56min 14sec (3374 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 09 2019