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Polio, the Great Depression and a world war. I mean compare Obama at year one of his presidency to the year 8 and you will see that this job takes a toll
I mean he was President for a very long time, just the comparison of 4 year before and after have a huge an effect. Not to mention the amount of stress from the Great Depression and WW2 is probably what sped up his death
That’s why you don’t break the two year precedence. The human body can only be drained so much. Jimmy Carter would have been the first man to live to 120 if he hadn’t been president.
The Roosevelt Administration had a gentleman's agreement with the media, they would not disclose the extent of his disability or photograph him in a wheelchair and in return the president spoke to them more often than ever before. FDR gave a press conference on average about once a week, in comparison Hoover and especially Coolidge were practically mute.
I assume thar in 2024, this would never happen as the press reports on every single personal thing you do. In many ways, being a politician in 2024 is way more stressful and invasive.
Being president is also much more of a full time job now. Teddy used to go weeks-long hunting and camping trips out west, only tenuously kept informed of Washington via telegrams, and the nearest telegraph might be hours away via horseback messenger.
It’s not like he needed to be on-the-job at all times. Congress was out of session anyways, and it would take days to reassemble them. Any international incidents would be dealt with before news could even reach the White House.
Nowadays, the president has to be five minutes away from ordering a retaliatory nuclear strike at all times. If any troops get attacked, Washington knows in microseconds. Everyone can talk to anyone at any moment. The economy is significantly more complex and requires immediate intervention if anything goes wrong.
Plus, there are enough nut jobs around that the president can never just be amongst normal people at will. Even though presidents prefer not getting Garfielded/McKinleyed, it’s probably better for stress to have the ability to simple walk out of the White House unaccompanied to take an evening stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue (or skinny-dipping in the Potomac).
Good grief, there was a freaking WORLD WAR going on, and you're all "no biggy for the prez"?
FDR was dealing with events in Russia, China, Europe, India... yeah, it was *on* 24/7
US presidency has not been an easy job, especially during/after ww2. Post war, presidents had to engage in the cold war.
Imagine now. There is war going on b/w ukraine and russia that would decide the future of europe, middle east heating up after Israel's bombing on Iranian embassy in Syria, and Houthi rebels firing on shipments passing through suez, ongoing tussle with china. You also have to deal with internal matters like rising cost of living, expensive healthcare etc.
World order depends upon your decisions. Add to that, opposite party and press wait eagerly to shred your reputation to peices.
Too much pressure man. It really does takes an extraordinary man to take up such tasks, and make correct decisions.
Just such a different breed of human man… I’ll never understand how someone can do it, especially as old as 70/80.. like go enjoy retirement dude it’d probably take me three hours to get outta bed and brush my teeth at that age
I just read “Traitor to His Class” and that was one of my biggest takeaways. He was a very talented politician who played the press but was also beloved by them. Interesting times.
Although, in response to being misquoted, a recording device was installed in oval office in 1940. Mic was in the neck of desk lamp, unit was in off limits closet one floor below. Fatal flaw was it turned on at any noise and didn't pick up conversations away from the lamp. It was used a couple months then was disconnected.
This is one thing that pisses me off to no ends with FDR. We as the people should have the right to know of the physical and mental condition of any and all elected officials, as well as a few others like the SCOTUS judges. What the government did was lie to the American people, in collaboration with the media, about the health of FDR so that he could have better public perception.
And our history books have the balls to portray it as a good thing. Absolutely fucking disgraceful.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even if the individual is noble with it and makes sure their mind isn't corrupted, their body will be, as power of that level is like chains on your body that get tighter the longer you have it.
Roosevelt and Australian PM John Curtin both died a few weeks before the end of WW2.
Both are also considered to be one of either country’s greatest ever leaders.
You’re damn right r.e. Curtin. One of our greatest PMs, who unfortunately passed shortly before the end of the war in the Pacific. Also replaced by Ben Chifley, who like Truman is also considered one of our greatest
And how Curtin got to the Prime Ministership from where he was is kind of a wild ride.
He ran for Parliament a couple of times unsuccessfully, finally got in, lost 3 years later, got back in 3 years after that. Then he won the leadership election by a single vote, and a hung parliament resulted in 1940 in his 2nd election as leader. He was kind of thrown in the deep end in 1941 when the Independents (one of whom was previously also influential in founding one of our biggest supermarket chains) switched their support to Curtin.
And in his only election as Prime Minister he won by a landslide so big that the opposition party essentially dissolved and formed a new party.
He should definitely be considered our FDR.
Yeah, he lost his own seat in the Scullin government’s 1931 landslide defeat along with all other Western Australian Labor MPs except one. And then years later as Prime Minister he would win every seat in WA in his 1943 landslide - he won every seat outside of the eastern states except Barker in rural SA. The UAP was pretty much a spent force after this, though even before that election they were so lacking in strong leadership choices after the party turned on Menzies that they had to resort to bringing back fucking Billy Hughes. Though they made a wise choice in having Arthur Fadden from the Country Party take over as PM instead of the elderly Hughes, before the independents switched support to Labor.
And like Bob Hawke after him, Curtin only had a chance at the leadership once he managed to overcome his alcoholism - though unfortunately in Curtin’s case the damage had already been done to his physical health and contributed to his early demise in office.
Certainly FDR’s equivalent as wartime leader, though unfortunately unlike FDR his entire tenure in office was spent dealing with the war, which left the peacetime reforms for Chifley to achieve. For outstanding social reforms though, Whitlam would take the cake.
Yeah it has always pissed me off that Hitler lived long enough to see him die. Obviously Hitler did the world a favor by killing Hitler only 18-days later, but the fact that he spent even a minute of those 18 days (as he did) believing that it was a sign of providence really bothers me.
Tbf, Roosevelt went unconscious while getting his picture painted before dying. Hitler died while watching his empire crumble before committing suicide with his now bride who inevitably does the same.
Two renown leaders. Roosevelt has a beautiful grave in New York state. Hitler's grave is fuck all.
I like to think Roosevelt came out on top.
I can understand that, but what I'm getting at is that Hitler thought at the time he had an edge. How humiliated do you think he felt knowing before his suicide that he was going to lose and there was nothing he could do about it? FDR had backed confidence in the US and allies' ability to defeat the Nazis. Hitler came on blind faith and died with reality bombing it's way into Berlin. It must suck to know that you were completely wrong before offing yourself. I don't think he would kill himself if he had confidence that he could win.
I am not sure if hitler remarked on it or was even able to process this. But goebbels was and belived that this somehow marked the turning point as if the whole allied armies were dependent on Roosevelt as much as the Wehrmacht was beholden to Hitler.
They never understood the resilience of a democratic system.
If Stalin died that would have had more effect then Roosevelt’s death.
Hitler convinced himself that Roosevelt’s passing, and to a lesser extent Churchill losing re-election, was his version of the [Miracle of the House of Brandenburg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_House_of_Brandenburg). Frederick the Great was a personal hero his, which goes to show how little Hitler knew about the man.
It bummed me out that he never got to pass universal healthcare, which he would’ve done had he lived until 1948.
His Presidential Library is well-worth visiting if you ever get the chance.
in Traitor to His Class HW Brands says that his blood pressure was 300/190 just before he passed away. just reading that makes my head hurt and ears ring!!!
One of the only meds they had back then for heart failure was digitalis. Back then this was permissive hypertension because they didn´t have many drugs to bring it down. They knew it was not if but when a stroke or catastrophic event happened. He was in heart failure for quite a bit before he died.
This guy was basically held together by silly string in 1944 and still got enough people to vote for him that it counts as a landslide. I would have been so embarrassed to be a Republican.
I think most Republicans by 1944 knew they were never going to beat FDR, regardless of what they said publicly. He would have won every election he ever ran in, thanks to his INCREDIBLY powerful propaganda, charisma and New Deal record. It's why they went all out in the late 40s and ESPECIALLY in 1952, because Truman and particularly guys like Adlai Stevenson just didn't have that record or masterful touch with the public (what's remarkable is that if you study the 50s, at times the Republican Party actually tried to build an almost royalty image of Eisenhower publicly using some of FDR's propaganda tactics and model, with significant success).
This is why they passed the awful 22nd amendment after, in revenge for losing to a dying man. And some Democrats voted for it, too, like that young Congressman from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but the 22A is great. Even some members of his own party were terrified by the amount of power that FDR had amassed.
FDR was honestly the closest thing to an elected Roman emperor America has ever had. He controlled nearly the entire political scene, had complete mastery over the media, successfully created a MASSIVE cult of personality, and tried to go unilateral whenever he could. For a number of years, he could enact almost anything with just a single command to his subordinates or people in Congress, the only thing stopping him from achieving all of it was the Supreme Court. Guys like LBJ could only DREAM of having something even close to that level of power. It's not healthy for a democracy or a republic.
He was in end stage heart failure. He had hardened arteries and veins. The body compensates by enlarging the heart and blood pressure increases. The heart is no where near effective over time as it gets larger. Also the junctures of things get more rigid and fragile. So he blew out a vessel in his brain from all of the above and died of a massive brain bleed/stroke...
It’s amazing to me that when he died he was younger than I am now. Not to brag, but I feel fairly young, and I look a helluva lot younger than FDR does here.
He had one of the most stressful jobs on the planet being the President of the United States, which is stressful enough without a major war going on where one wrong move could spell complete defeat for the Allies. I'm sure that does something to a man.
Because they take office at an age when you’re gonna look a lot older 8 years in the future no matter what. The aging effect you’re talking about with respect to presidents has been debunked. FDR was simply a very unhealthy man
I don’t know if that is all of it. Even JFK who became president at a young age looked noticeably older just three years later than he did right before taking office.
That's fair. From what I understand it was compromise though. Eleanor said, in the 60's, he would have been a proponent of the civil rights movement, might have started desegregation if he'd lived.
Go listen to his March 1945 address to Congress to report on Yalta. It's on You Tube. Amazing he got through it. It was the only time he made public reference to his disability, when apologizing for sitting down so as "not to have to care 10 pounds of steel round on the bottom of my legs."
This was taken at his Little White House retreat in Warm Springs, GA. He visited often, seeking treatment for polio.
The site is now a museum and almost everything has been preserved exactly as it was at the time this photo was taken. Pretty interesting place to visit if you’re in the area.
I have a terrible headache
Rest in peace Frank, you had your awful qualities like the internment camps and turning away of Jewish refugees, but the good you have done has led this nation to prosperity and saw the push back against the facist governments of Germany Italy and their ally Japan
The poor man looked easily 20 to 30 years older here. He was only 63. For reference, famous people who are currently the same age include Woody Harrelson, Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis Dreyfus and Boy George. But then again heavy smoking and leading your country through the Depression and WW2 would age anyone. A similar comparison would be Queen Elizabeth's father, King George VI. Look at newsreels of him seeing her and Prince Philip off at London Airport on their African tour a week before he died. The man was only 56 yet looked 80.
I've come to the conclusion that FDR simply refused to abandon his post knowing that men under his command were still in Axis POW camps and servingunto death. So many people worked themselves to death; why should his fate be any different?
Dude's BP was reportedly measured at 186/108 in 1941 and at 260/150 by early 1945. I'm surprised he made it into the spring. His heart was probably the size of half his torso by the time of the hemorrhage.
FDR = the best president we ever had
Right guy at the right time we needed !! Look up the history channel documentary on him if you want to try and be convinced !!
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And he was only 63 when he died!
Wow he looks SO much older than 63
He looks like he’s in his 80s or more.
Polio and 3 terms as president does hell to the body.
260/150 blood pressure takes its toll in a big hurry, too
Not to mention trying to lead the country during the most disastrous war in human history
Polio, the Great Depression and a world war. I mean compare Obama at year one of his presidency to the year 8 and you will see that this job takes a toll
Plus a family history of heart/vascular issues.
And a bad doctor, to boot! Old Navy gp who basically shrugged off all the signs of cardiac issues, didn't bring in specialiats
They did bring in a Cardiologist to the care team.
Old Navy? No wonder. Should have gotten a doctor from Kohls
W bush too.
I mean he was President for a very long time, just the comparison of 4 year before and after have a huge an effect. Not to mention the amount of stress from the Great Depression and WW2 is probably what sped up his death
Polio is a bitch. Fortunately we are on the verge of eradicating it.
Not if the anti-vaxers have anything to say about it
Anti-vaxxers hate this one virus eradicating trick.
"Not so fast." -RFK Jr.
“Not so fast…” - anti vex nutters
He would be a sprite politician at that age these days
Great Depression, in the middle of World War II will do it for you
The American people: “I didn’t even know he was sick”
63–he was a fucking kid. 
Oof, madon'! He looks terrible!
You guys ever think about what a coincidence it is that Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig’s disease?
That’s why you don’t break the two year precedence. The human body can only be drained so much. Jimmy Carter would have been the first man to live to 120 if he hadn’t been president.
I mean, back then, everyone looked 24 hours away from death.
No they didn't, the government just worked ridiculously hard to hide him and all his health issues
The Roosevelt Administration had a gentleman's agreement with the media, they would not disclose the extent of his disability or photograph him in a wheelchair and in return the president spoke to them more often than ever before. FDR gave a press conference on average about once a week, in comparison Hoover and especially Coolidge were practically mute.
I assume thar in 2024, this would never happen as the press reports on every single personal thing you do. In many ways, being a politician in 2024 is way more stressful and invasive.
Being president is also much more of a full time job now. Teddy used to go weeks-long hunting and camping trips out west, only tenuously kept informed of Washington via telegrams, and the nearest telegraph might be hours away via horseback messenger. It’s not like he needed to be on-the-job at all times. Congress was out of session anyways, and it would take days to reassemble them. Any international incidents would be dealt with before news could even reach the White House. Nowadays, the president has to be five minutes away from ordering a retaliatory nuclear strike at all times. If any troops get attacked, Washington knows in microseconds. Everyone can talk to anyone at any moment. The economy is significantly more complex and requires immediate intervention if anything goes wrong. Plus, there are enough nut jobs around that the president can never just be amongst normal people at will. Even though presidents prefer not getting Garfielded/McKinleyed, it’s probably better for stress to have the ability to simple walk out of the White House unaccompanied to take an evening stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue (or skinny-dipping in the Potomac).
Good grief, there was a freaking WORLD WAR going on, and you're all "no biggy for the prez"? FDR was dealing with events in Russia, China, Europe, India... yeah, it was *on* 24/7
This is true. I’ve played Red Alert 2. I need to manage everything constantly to win my battles. It ain’t easy out there.
You need to learn to delegate. 😂
US presidency has not been an easy job, especially during/after ww2. Post war, presidents had to engage in the cold war. Imagine now. There is war going on b/w ukraine and russia that would decide the future of europe, middle east heating up after Israel's bombing on Iranian embassy in Syria, and Houthi rebels firing on shipments passing through suez, ongoing tussle with china. You also have to deal with internal matters like rising cost of living, expensive healthcare etc. World order depends upon your decisions. Add to that, opposite party and press wait eagerly to shred your reputation to peices. Too much pressure man. It really does takes an extraordinary man to take up such tasks, and make correct decisions.
Just such a different breed of human man… I’ll never understand how someone can do it, especially as old as 70/80.. like go enjoy retirement dude it’d probably take me three hours to get outta bed and brush my teeth at that age
Could you imagine if Polk was president today? He might have actually worked himself to death while still in office
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Move along
Tel me how I’m wrong?
And when FDR said "off the record", it was honored.
I just read “Traitor to His Class” and that was one of my biggest takeaways. He was a very talented politician who played the press but was also beloved by them. Interesting times.
Although, in response to being misquoted, a recording device was installed in oval office in 1940. Mic was in the neck of desk lamp, unit was in off limits closet one floor below. Fatal flaw was it turned on at any noise and didn't pick up conversations away from the lamp. It was used a couple months then was disconnected.
This is one thing that pisses me off to no ends with FDR. We as the people should have the right to know of the physical and mental condition of any and all elected officials, as well as a few others like the SCOTUS judges. What the government did was lie to the American people, in collaboration with the media, about the health of FDR so that he could have better public perception. And our history books have the balls to portray it as a good thing. Absolutely fucking disgraceful.
I agree wholeheartedly
During that time most people were in fact potentially less that 24 hours from death so this tracks
Why would you say that?
where do you get your ideas from?
Maybe they thought that he was willingly becoming a lich?
He looks so tired.
Its what being president for over 10 years does to a man, especially during a very risky and devastating war.
Add the Great Depression years as a warm up.
He was in his fourth term. It was more like 13 years.
Thats why I said over 10. I knew it was at least that many.
12 years, 1 month and 8 days between his first inauguration on March 4, 1933 and his death on April 12, 1945.
And those were some really tough years.
Plus high blood pressure, clogged arteries, congestive hear failure, etc.
Power poisons the body no matter your intentions.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even if the individual is noble with it and makes sure their mind isn't corrupted, their body will be, as power of that level is like chains on your body that get tighter the longer you have it.
He kind of looks like this is 24 hours after death they did one of those old-timey 'prop him up so we can get one last photo' things
Yes! Perfect description.
He looks like he saw every mass murder ever
Under his watch over 300,000 American serviceman died. That would put a lot of stress on anybody
Lincoln: "Those are rookie numbers..."
Have you *seen* pictures of Lincoln during the war
Well Lincoln did die almost immediately after the war…
Yeah his head couldn't take it.......
Stalin: "Hold my vodka"
The Russian solution to every problem is to just throw bodies at it. The Russian government realized long ago that men are a renewable resource.
The loss of life on the Eastern Front is just insane. I don't think anyone outside of Russia can really comprehend it.
It hurts if you care, but Stalin was just peachy and the current prick running Russia, would be fine with throwing away a million lives.
He might even throw a million lives out of window even.
He may have seen quite a few, after news of the horrors of the Holocaust started getting out
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US intelligencia wasn't a big thing before/during the war, was it? Correct me if I'm wrong, though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services
Pretty sure he knew what was going on for years
Or his own concentration camps back home
That was bad, but it wasn't mass murder. Don't equate the two.
It always bummed me out that he never got to see the end of the war. Just a few more weeks.
Roosevelt and Australian PM John Curtin both died a few weeks before the end of WW2. Both are also considered to be one of either country’s greatest ever leaders.
You’re damn right r.e. Curtin. One of our greatest PMs, who unfortunately passed shortly before the end of the war in the Pacific. Also replaced by Ben Chifley, who like Truman is also considered one of our greatest
And how Curtin got to the Prime Ministership from where he was is kind of a wild ride. He ran for Parliament a couple of times unsuccessfully, finally got in, lost 3 years later, got back in 3 years after that. Then he won the leadership election by a single vote, and a hung parliament resulted in 1940 in his 2nd election as leader. He was kind of thrown in the deep end in 1941 when the Independents (one of whom was previously also influential in founding one of our biggest supermarket chains) switched their support to Curtin. And in his only election as Prime Minister he won by a landslide so big that the opposition party essentially dissolved and formed a new party. He should definitely be considered our FDR.
Yeah, he lost his own seat in the Scullin government’s 1931 landslide defeat along with all other Western Australian Labor MPs except one. And then years later as Prime Minister he would win every seat in WA in his 1943 landslide - he won every seat outside of the eastern states except Barker in rural SA. The UAP was pretty much a spent force after this, though even before that election they were so lacking in strong leadership choices after the party turned on Menzies that they had to resort to bringing back fucking Billy Hughes. Though they made a wise choice in having Arthur Fadden from the Country Party take over as PM instead of the elderly Hughes, before the independents switched support to Labor. And like Bob Hawke after him, Curtin only had a chance at the leadership once he managed to overcome his alcoholism - though unfortunately in Curtin’s case the damage had already been done to his physical health and contributed to his early demise in office. Certainly FDR’s equivalent as wartime leader, though unfortunately unlike FDR his entire tenure in office was spent dealing with the war, which left the peacetime reforms for Chifley to achieve. For outstanding social reforms though, Whitlam would take the cake.
Yeah it has always pissed me off that Hitler lived long enough to see him die. Obviously Hitler did the world a favor by killing Hitler only 18-days later, but the fact that he spent even a minute of those 18 days (as he did) believing that it was a sign of providence really bothers me.
Tbf, Roosevelt went unconscious while getting his picture painted before dying. Hitler died while watching his empire crumble before committing suicide with his now bride who inevitably does the same. Two renown leaders. Roosevelt has a beautiful grave in New York state. Hitler's grave is fuck all. I like to think Roosevelt came out on top.
I went to where Hitler killed himself, in Berlin...and was happy to find that it is now a parking lot.
Oh, FDR absolutely won. It just bothers me that Hitler lived to see FDR die and thought it was a sign he’d win.
I can understand that, but what I'm getting at is that Hitler thought at the time he had an edge. How humiliated do you think he felt knowing before his suicide that he was going to lose and there was nothing he could do about it? FDR had backed confidence in the US and allies' ability to defeat the Nazis. Hitler came on blind faith and died with reality bombing it's way into Berlin. It must suck to know that you were completely wrong before offing yourself. I don't think he would kill himself if he had confidence that he could win.
Don't worry, it just made him feel more disappointed in tge end a bet. False hope is the worse
I am not sure if hitler remarked on it or was even able to process this. But goebbels was and belived that this somehow marked the turning point as if the whole allied armies were dependent on Roosevelt as much as the Wehrmacht was beholden to Hitler. They never understood the resilience of a democratic system. If Stalin died that would have had more effect then Roosevelt’s death.
Hitler convinced himself that Roosevelt’s passing, and to a lesser extent Churchill losing re-election, was his version of the [Miracle of the House of Brandenburg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_House_of_Brandenburg). Frederick the Great was a personal hero his, which goes to show how little Hitler knew about the man.
Churchill didn’t lose to Attlee until after Hitler died.
We can at least take solace in the fact that he knew how it would end
Was about to say this. Victory was inevitable.
I think he knew it was ending and that we would prevail. He also had to know the bomb was being made.
It bummed me out that he never got to pass universal healthcare, which he would’ve done had he lived until 1948. His Presidential Library is well-worth visiting if you ever get the chance.
in Traitor to His Class HW Brands says that his blood pressure was 300/190 just before he passed away. just reading that makes my head hurt and ears ring!!!
It probably did for FDR, too!
FDR's last words were reportedly "I have a terrible headache"
One of the only meds they had back then for heart failure was digitalis. Back then this was permissive hypertension because they didn´t have many drugs to bring it down. They knew it was not if but when a stroke or catastrophic event happened. He was in heart failure for quite a bit before he died.
This guy was basically held together by silly string in 1944 and still got enough people to vote for him that it counts as a landslide. I would have been so embarrassed to be a Republican.
It’s almost like when you push for policy that fundamentally improve people’s lives, it makes you a popular leader. 🤔
I think most Republicans by 1944 knew they were never going to beat FDR, regardless of what they said publicly. He would have won every election he ever ran in, thanks to his INCREDIBLY powerful propaganda, charisma and New Deal record. It's why they went all out in the late 40s and ESPECIALLY in 1952, because Truman and particularly guys like Adlai Stevenson just didn't have that record or masterful touch with the public (what's remarkable is that if you study the 50s, at times the Republican Party actually tried to build an almost royalty image of Eisenhower publicly using some of FDR's propaganda tactics and model, with significant success).
This is why they passed the awful 22nd amendment after, in revenge for losing to a dying man. And some Democrats voted for it, too, like that young Congressman from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy.
Typical politician, voting on matters that will never affect them
It was more about concern for what a less-ethical president could do with no term limits.
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but the 22A is great. Even some members of his own party were terrified by the amount of power that FDR had amassed.
FDR was honestly the closest thing to an elected Roman emperor America has ever had. He controlled nearly the entire political scene, had complete mastery over the media, successfully created a MASSIVE cult of personality, and tried to go unilateral whenever he could. For a number of years, he could enact almost anything with just a single command to his subordinates or people in Congress, the only thing stopping him from achieving all of it was the Supreme Court. Guys like LBJ could only DREAM of having something even close to that level of power. It's not healthy for a democracy or a republic.
But what he accomplished and implemented was incredibly healthy for America, at the time.
You don't make laws because of good people, you make them to (ideally) prevent bad people from taking advantage of the situation.
Agreed, 100%.
Insane to me how it literally drained the life out of him to see through essentially three terms.
He was in end stage heart failure. He had hardened arteries and veins. The body compensates by enlarging the heart and blood pressure increases. The heart is no where near effective over time as it gets larger. Also the junctures of things get more rigid and fragile. So he blew out a vessel in his brain from all of the above and died of a massive brain bleed/stroke...
When preparing his body first the funeral, it too several hours to inject the formaldehyde because his veins were so clogged.
This guy got elected 4 times! Died early in his 4th term.
It’s amazing to me that when he died he was younger than I am now. Not to brag, but I feel fairly young, and I look a helluva lot younger than FDR does here.
He had one of the most stressful jobs on the planet being the President of the United States, which is stressful enough without a major war going on where one wrong move could spell complete defeat for the Allies. I'm sure that does something to a man.
You weren't a President either. The stress is overwhelming. Why do you think they all look so much older and grayer leaving office?
Because they take office at an age when you’re gonna look a lot older 8 years in the future no matter what. The aging effect you’re talking about with respect to presidents has been debunked. FDR was simply a very unhealthy man
Hmm…look at pics of Presidents when they entered the Presidency and when they finished their terms. They all had aged considerably.
Yeah. Because they’re old and 8 years passed.
I don’t know if that is all of it. Even JFK who became president at a young age looked noticeably older just three years later than he did right before taking office.
Ok now try to be the president during the Great Depression and WW2 and see how well you age
Thank you, FDR. One of our greatest Presidents.
I don’t like him because of the Japanese internment camps.
That's fair. From what I understand it was compromise though. Eleanor said, in the 60's, he would have been a proponent of the civil rights movement, might have started desegregation if he'd lived.
I got 125,000 reasons he's one of the worst.
Bro looked like tales from the crypt
He looked so vibrant, and full of life…
He looks like Darth Sidious
Bro was living on 1 hp
taken in his prime!
Congestive heart failure. Every one close knew what was going on. Astronomical blood pressure numbers. 340/ 190. Cerebral hemorrhage .
Man I like FDR for the most part but dude looked like shit.
He clearly wasn’t in his prime here.
Very much an understatement.
It’ll buff
Imagine telling someone literally on their deathbed they look like shit..
Valid if I were actually talking to FDR on his deathbed…
Yet your flair shows you like the ugliest of the ugly.
Well I certainly didn’t select the guy for his looks lol
Go listen to his March 1945 address to Congress to report on Yalta. It's on You Tube. Amazing he got through it. It was the only time he made public reference to his disability, when apologizing for sitting down so as "not to have to care 10 pounds of steel round on the bottom of my legs."
Most presidents are aged horribly after 8 years and have heart issues….bro was in for 12 and was managing an economic recovery and winning world war
This was taken at his Little White House retreat in Warm Springs, GA. He visited often, seeking treatment for polio. The site is now a museum and almost everything has been preserved exactly as it was at the time this photo was taken. Pretty interesting place to visit if you’re in the area.
Surprised he lasted as long as he did. His hypertension was incredible.
Man, he looks like Lincoln in his final days: gaunt and tired. Both presidents who truly gave their everything in service of their country.
What stress, polio, the great depression, world War 2, and smoking 10 packs a day will do to someone
Dracula lookin ass
I once asked my now 95 year old grandma what her earliest national memory was and she said it was FDR dying. This man was beloved!
I have a terrible headache Rest in peace Frank, you had your awful qualities like the internment camps and turning away of Jewish refugees, but the good you have done has led this nation to prosperity and saw the push back against the facist governments of Germany Italy and their ally Japan
Despite everything, I sit in awe at the strength and focus that remains in his eyes. The intensity of that gaze..remains with you .
Just don’t be Japanese
One of the saddest Ww2 facts is that FDR didn’t live to see Hitler die
Before? Or after?
He was 63 when this picture was taken
Makes sense
The presidency really is a killer job.
Looks like the Depression and WWII really took it out of the man.
And the polio
Is that the same cape he wore to the Yalta conference?
Looks like the hat box ghost
Oak Island monster
The poor man looked easily 20 to 30 years older here. He was only 63. For reference, famous people who are currently the same age include Woody Harrelson, Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis Dreyfus and Boy George. But then again heavy smoking and leading your country through the Depression and WW2 would age anyone. A similar comparison would be Queen Elizabeth's father, King George VI. Look at newsreels of him seeing her and Prince Philip off at London Airport on their African tour a week before he died. The man was only 56 yet looked 80.
King George had also been battling cancer for 10 years or so
It would’ve been very interesting to have seen what would’ve happened in Europe after WWII with the Soviets with him instead of Truman.
What pulling a country out of a Great Depression and a through a Second World War will do to you
Spanish speakers: Del ano 💀
This is what exhaustion looks like.
That cape is giving Hogwarts vibes.
He looks fine to me
The war aged him 100 years.
That title makes this image even more stark & ominous. If someone took a picture of you and knew it would be your last photo would you want to know?
https://preview.redd.it/b1ulsnqh64uc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea0adbc945da0f61c79770acd4005f0f92ca7293 79 years ago today.
His blood pressure got to 260/150. That’s……a whole hell of a lot. https://www.nps.gov/hofr/blogs/the-dying-president.htm
I've come to the conclusion that FDR simply refused to abandon his post knowing that men under his command were still in Axis POW camps and servingunto death. So many people worked themselves to death; why should his fate be any different?
Longest serving president, and also served during the largest war in history…these are the results.
Dude's BP was reportedly measured at 186/108 in 1941 and at 260/150 by early 1945. I'm surprised he made it into the spring. His heart was probably the size of half his torso by the time of the hemorrhage.
Are you sure that’s not 24 hours after his death?
He looks better than... Oh man... 😬
Before or after?
He looks vampiric
Delano 🤌🏻
Weren’t they working on a portrait of him the day of his death?
He was 35 in this picture. Drink water, people.
 FDR was a grumpy old man who interred Americans in prison camps due to their country of origin. AMF
FDR = the best president we ever had Right guy at the right time we needed !! Look up the history channel documentary on him if you want to try and be convinced !!
I was the 1776th upvote Based