| Bio |

Who they were

Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City^{[4][5, p. 270]}, the second of four children^{[1, p. 2]}. As a boy he suffered from severe, sometimes agonising asthma, a condition serious enough to shape his whole approach to life^{[1, p. 2][6]}. Rather than accept a frail childhood, he built himself up through strenuous exercise, a habit he kept for the rest of his life, later taking up boxing as one of his preferred forms of training^[7][8].

Roosevelt's rise ran through a string of demanding public jobs: he served as New York City's police commissioner in 1895^{[5, p. 270]}, then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1897^[4]. He resigned that post to help raise and lead the Rough Riders, a volunteer cavalry regiment, during the Spanish-American War, taking part in the charge up San Juan Hill on 1 July 1898^{[9, p. 2][10]}. War hero status carried him into the governorship of New York, and from there onto the Republican ticket as William McKinley's running mate in 1900^{[11, p. 12][7]}.

Roosevelt became president in September 1901, arriving in Buffalo only after William McKinley had already died of an assassin's gunshot wounds^[12]. As president he pushed through the Panama Canal project, later called his greatest material contribution to the country^[13][14], and made conservation a central plank of his administration, setting aside land that became national parks^{[1, p. 1][1, p. 16]}. In 1906 he received the Nobel Peace Prize^[7], though not without some friction with the prize committee along the way^[13].

After leaving the White House, Roosevelt ran for president again in 1912 as the Progressive ‘Bull Moose’ Party candidate^{[15, p. 3]}. In October that year he was shot in Milwaukee before a scheduled campaign speech and delivered it anyway, with the bullet still in his chest^[7][3]. He died unexpectedly on 6 January 1919^{[16, p. 67][17]}; a contemporary account recorded that after his death “all partisan feeling” toward him softened^[17].

Roosevelt's presidency reshaped how Americans thought about the federal government's role, from conservation to trust-busting, and the national parks and forests set aside on his watch remain part of that legacy^{[1, p. 1][1, p. 16]}. His 1912 break from the Republican Party to run as a Progressive also reshaped the reform politics that followed that year's election^{[15, p. 3][15, p. 10]}. He remains, to this day, the youngest person to have held the presidency^[2][18].

Roosevelt loved boxing as exercise even in the White House, sparring with a trainer named Mike Donovan; a blow in one of these bouts eventually cost him most of the sight in one eye, which he kept quiet about for years^[7][19].

| Legacy & Reputation |

What’s the verdict?