Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the thirty-second President of the United States. He is the only American president to have been elected four times during his career. His wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, is also known for her fight for women's rights. 

Leader of the Democratic Party and President of the United States, he introduced the New Deal, aimed at revitalizing the economy and combating unemployment in order to pull the country out of the Great Depression of 1929. He also reformed the American banking system and founded the Social Security program. During the Second World War, he took part in numerous conferences and strategic meetings with the leaders of other countries. His role in the Normandy landings, the preparations for the end of the war and the creation of the UN is undeniable.

 He is best known for his mastery of the media, his more interventionist policies in dealing with the Great Depression and his role during the Second World War.

• 1882: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is born in the United States on January 30.

• 1933: When he officially takes office as President, Roosevelt appoints a woman to the position of Secretary of Labor in his cabinet. It was the first time in history that a woman had held such a prestigious position in the United States. 

• 1933: At the start of his first term, he implements his New Deal. In the space of a few months, he passed fifteen new laws. 

• 1941: In a British battleship off Newfoundland, named Prince of Wales, Presidents Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sign the Atlantic Charter, aimed at establishing a new international policy. In 1945, this charter gave birth to the United Nations. 

• 1941: The Japanese bomb the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7. For the first time since the start of the Second World War, the United States is the target of an attack. 

• 1942: On January 1, with 26 countries adopting the Atlantic Charter, President Roosevelt announces to the U.S. Congress that the country is entering the war against the alliance consisting mainly of Germany, Italy and Japan. 

• 1942: Following the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt imprisons over 100,000 Japanese-American civilians in centers known as War Relocation Camps. 

• 1942: Roosevelt, who had received a letter from Albert Einstein warning him that the Germans were working on an atomic bomb, decided to build one too, and launched the Manhattan Project. In the end, it was his successor, Harry Truman, who dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. The first, dropped on August 6, 1945, hit Hiroshima; the second, dropped on August 9, hit Nagasaki. 

• 1943: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin take part in the Teheran Conference, at which they decide on the future of Europe after the war. France is excluded from the negotiations for collaborating with the Germans. During this meeting, Roosevelt promises the USSR that a massive landing will take place in France. It was also during this meeting that they decided to create a world security organization (UN). 

• 1944: The landing promised by Roosevelt finally takes place in Normandy on June 6, 1944. Three million soldiers (mainly American, British and Canadian) take part in the two-month Battle of Normandy. 

• 1945: On February 4, the Yalta Conference takes place, at which Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt officially decide on the fate of Germany after the war. 

• 1945: Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies suddenly on April 12 in the United States.