#rooseveltspbs

October 27, 1858: President Theodore Roosevelt Is Born

On this day in 1858, Teddy Roosevelt was born in New York City. 

Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were the most prominent members of one of the most important families in American history. Theodore and Franklin occupied the White House for nineteen of the first forty-five years of the twentieth century, years during which much of the modern world – and the modern state – was created. They shared an unfeigned love for people and politics and a willingness to defy class prejudices to help create a true democracy of equal opportunity.

Along with Eleanor, Theodore’s best-loved niece and Franklin’s wife, all three overcame personal obstacles as they independently – and collectively – transformed the model of a nation’s responsibility to its citizens and the wider world.

Take a look at a timeline of key events during Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt’s lifetimes using photos, quotes, and clips from Ken Burns’s The Roosevelts: An Intimate History.

January 6, 1919: Theodore Roosevelt Dies

On this day in 1919, Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, died of a blood clot. 

Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were the most prominent members of one of the most important families in American history. Theodore and Franklin occupied the White House for nineteen of the first forty-five years of the twentieth century, years during which much of the modern world – and the modern state – was created. They shared an unfeigned love for people and politics and a willingness to defy class prejudices to help create a true democracy of equal opportunity.

Along with Eleanor, Theodore's best-loved niece and Franklin's wife, all three overcame personal obstacles as they independently – and collectively – transformed the model of a nation's responsibility to its citizens and the wider world.

Take a look at a timeline of key events during Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt's lifetimes using photos, quotes, and clips from Ken Burns's The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. 

If it had been a different time, I'd say Eleanor Roosevelt would probably be the one, but as a woman in the male-dominated political world of the mid-20th Century, Eleanor would had trouble breaking through the glass ceiling that female political leaders are still trying to shatter today.

•This is an Historically Accurate Transcription starring President Herbert Hoover and President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt•

TR is back from Africa for a couple years when he starts getting a major itch and this time it ain’t in his pubes! He wants to be President again! He’s cranky about how his ole do-boy Taft is handling the job. A rift starts forming within the Republicans. When the party renominates the more conservative Taft for the election of 1912 Teddy runs as the candidate for the Progressive Party (“Bull Moose” Party.) This splits Republican votes and the Democrat Woodrow Wilson wins.

While TR was campaigning he was SHOT IN THE CHEST during a speech by some guy. The bullet went through his eyeglass case and a fat clump of speech papers in his pocket and penetrated his skin. He calmly checked his mouth for blood drizzles and when there weren't any he deduced that no vitals had been punctured and went on with his speech for OVER ONE HOUR. Here’s how he started it:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."

After TR loses he’s down in the dumps so he follows his own “GET ACTION!” advice to fight melancholy and goes on a South American adventure. He and his crew (incl. his son Kermit) start canoeing the “River of Doubt.”

Mosquitoes! Termites! Piranhas! OH MY!

Gators! Malaria! Being SILENTLY FOLLOWED BY THE CINTA LARGA TRIBE OF NATIVES WHO YOU NEVER SEE YET SHOOT ARROWS AT YOUR DOG. Yelp.com is going to HEAR ABOUT THIS.

I don’t know how they didn't all die of fear-diarrhea but they venture on. They lose some canoes, they gotta carve new ones! Then TR tries saving some canoes from bashing into a rock and he slips and gashes his leg. In the middle of the Amazonian jungle. It gets so infected he can’t lift his head. His temperature is 103. He’s delirious. He keeps reciting the opening lines from that famous poem:

“UNH Me so HORNY / UNH UNH Me so HORNY”

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure-dome decree”

And now they come to impassable waterfalls. TR thinks he’s done for. He carries around a lethal dose of morphine! DON’T ASK WHERE. But his son Kermit ain’t HAVIN’ his dad's emo talk. Kermit puts his engineering skills to use and builds some doodads to lower the canoes down the side of the falls and the expedition continues! And eventually a rescue team finds them and they survive. The river gets renamed Rio Roosevelt.

Back home, TR now has to walk with a cane: “My big stick.”

MEANWHILE, over on the PU$$Y side o’ town, FDR is copycatting TR by taking all the same jobs he had. He’s now Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration. At one point Turd Fauntleroy uses a giant U.S. Navy ship to visit his Long Island home.

Then Franz Ferdinand’s body and mustache die and WWI starts in 1914. Wilson wants to remain neutral. German submarines are on the attack. In 1915 they sink the R.M.S. Lusitania which has over 100 American passengers aboard. Both Roosevelts want the U.S. to enter the war. But Wilson does NOT want to get involved with O.P.P.

Because he’s moonlighting in his Agent Jack Crawford Vaudeville Revue.

When Wilson is up for reelection in 1916 he campaigns on “Most People Don’t Care I’m a Eugenicist” “He kept us out of war” and wins. Meanwhile, FDR is impregnating Eleanor. (They’ve had six kids/Five Alive by the time she’s 31.) FDR is also being a real Lord Varys and gossiping behind boss Wilson’s back about how he thinks the U.S. should enter the war. FDR even gets the naval yards to start building battleships. He needs one for Prom!

In 1917 the U.S. intercepts the Zimmermann Telegram. It’s from Germany and it’s basically asking Mexico to come to a sleepover where they will gossip about the USA all night. Germany wants Mexico to join their side IF the U.S. should join the war in exchange for helping Mexico retake Texas. Mexico declines fighting against the Americans but vows to one day become fatter than them!

Germany is now waging war on all vessels. TR is going NUTS that the U.S. hasn’t joined. And then three American ships get torpedoed by the Germans and Wilson asks Congress for the war declaration. All systems go in the TR household. He badly wants to go to war himself but he’s too decrepit so off his sons go. TR even pulls Eleanor aside and tells her to get her hubby over to the frontlines ASAP. She is miffed at this request. Wilson doesn’t want FDR to go fight. He DOES want him to go tour the WWI conditions in Europe though.

So being the dandy that he is (blame his dingleberry mother) FDR “designs his own outfit” for this task and while he’s in London he buys multiple pairs of silk pajamas. DURING WARTIME. He also snaps some selfies on a LIVE BATTLEFIELD. Then starts wearing his “I Survived World War I” crop top. What would Teddy have done if they let HIM loose on a WW battlefield? Probably something that ended with a necklace of taxidermied German nutsacks. So far FDR is a MEH.

Eleanor’s wartime activity is helping to improve conditions for vets in mental hospitals.  She’s also visiting politicians regularly and networking for the future. (But YOU ignored her LinkedIn invite.)

In the meantime she manages squeezing in some ridicule time from FDR’s “dragon” mother who said to Eleanor (in front of company:) “If you’d just run a comb through your hair you’d look so much better.”

FDR’s mother also referred to FDR and Eleanor’s kids as “our children.”

You ready for THA TMZ DIRT?

AS MARIO LOPEZ REPORTED on last night's ep:

When FDR is in Europe he gets sick. Probably had rotten oil at the massage parlor. Or maybe an over-sugared Turkish Delight. So when he gets shipped back to America he has to be carried and plopped down back at home. He’s delirious and unaware that a bundle of letters has fallen out of his bag.

Eleanor finds them. Curiously...they aren’t from her. They’re from a Miss Lucy Mercer. She used to be Eleanor’s social secretary in Washington. The family was very fond of her. FDR was very fond of her snatch. They’d been carrying on an affair!

Eleanor’s world shatters. Her insecurities come bubbling back. Even FDR’s mother, Sara, is displeased. “(Why didn’t he pick MEEEEEEEEEEE?”) Sara tells FDR that he can do what he will but if he stays with Lucy Mercer he won’t inherit a dime. Everyone agrees that a divorce would be political suicide. FDR says goodbye to Lucy Mercer.

FOR NOW.

TR’s sons fight valiantly in WWI and receive medals. Unfortunately, his son Quentin dies in an air battle. He had been America’s sweetheart when TR was prez and so a town named Bismarck in Pennsylvania renames itself Quentin. TR mourns into his pony's mane whimpering, "My Quenti-Qui, My Quenti-Qui." Then the Germans send over a photo of Quentin's battlefield corpse with his eyeballs blown out. TR and his wife are just, like, very proud? Like, it seems the Germans wanted to freak them out but must not have fully grasped TR's ....enthusiasm for war.