7 November: Franklin D Roosevelt

On this date in 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States of America. 10 things you might not know about FDR:

1. He was born on 30 January 1882 in Hyde Park New York. He was the only child of Sara Delano and James Roosevelt, although he had a half brother from his father’s first marriage. He had a privileged childhood and went to an elite boarding school in Massachusetts before going to Harvard.
2. Was he related to President Theodore Roosevelt? Yes – they were distant cousins, fifth cousins, to be exact. They had the same great-great-great-great-grandfather, Nicholas Roosevelt, who lived from 1658 to 1742. FDR claimed that he was distantly related to ten other presidents, as well.
3. He was distantly related to his wife, as well. Eleanor Roosevelt was his fifth cousin once removed, and he’d known her since childhood. They met again at university and started a romantic relationship. His mother didn’t approve of the match and tried to break them up several times, but in spite of her efforts, the couple married in 1905. Theodore Roosevelt was her uncle, and he gave her away on her wedding day.
4. After Harvard, FDR went on to Columbia Law School, but he had little aptitude for or interest in, the subject. His professor said of him: “Franklin Roosevelt was not much of a student and nothing of a lawyer afterwards. He didn’t appear to have any aptitude for law, and made no effort to overcome that handicap by hard work.” He got a job as a lawyer but his passion was always politics.
5. Although Theodore and most of his famous relatives were Republicans, FDR was a democrat. Franklin rose quickly in the Democratic ranks to become the assistant secretary of the Navy during World War I. Then in 1920 he ran as Vice President with James Cox, but lost. He became President in 1933 and went on to win three more times, by a landslide each time, winning at least 53.4 percent of the popular vote. Roosevelt holds the record for the longest-serving American president, which can never now be beaten as there is now a law preventing any president from serving more than two terms (although I wouldn’t put it past Trump to try and change that).
6. He contracted polio in 1921 while on holiday in Canada, and was left paralysed from the waist down. He forged ahead with his political career in spite of that, and his disability was pretty much hidden from the public. He was only ever photographed seated or standing at a podium. If a photographer managed to snap him in his wheelchair, it’s said that Secret Service agents would confiscate the film. Recently, some doctors have suggested that he didn’t have polio but another debilitating condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Whichever it was, the fact Roosevelt believed he had polio meant that he championed efforts to wipe out polio and help its victims.
7. He was the first US president to fly in an aeroplane when he flew to Chicago in 1932 to accept the Democratic nomination for president. Later, he was the first sitting president to travel by plane and also the first sitting president to leave the country in wartime—when he took off from Miami in January 1943. He was also the first US president to appear on television and the first to appoint a woman to a cabinet position – Frances Perkins as secretary of labour.
8. His “new deal” and the Social Security Act made him popular among most minority groups, and he was known for his "fireside chat" radio addresses to the American people. He delivered 30 of those. Even he didn’t get everything right, however, according to 21^st century hindsight. Japanese Americans had every reason to dislike him as, during WWII, he had them forcibly removed into internment camps and sold off their homes so they couldn’t act as spies. German citizens in America at the start of the war, however, were allowed to stay. A few decades later, Congress issued a formal apology and awarded $20,000 to each surviving detainee.
9. His hobby and passion throughout his life was stamp collecting. His mother introduced him to the hobby as a child and he once said that it kept his going while he was bedridden in 1921. Even as President, he kept up his hobby and found it helped relieve the stress from his job. He even had the State Department send him their envelopes so that he review the stamps. As President, he had the added bonus of being able to create new stamps. He approved more than 200 during his time in office.
10. He died in April 1945, a few months into his fourth term, at the age of 63. He was sitting for a portrait when he suffered a stroke. He complained to the artist that he had “a terrific headache” and passed out. He died later the same day.

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

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