1911: Franklin D. Roosevelt's legendary political career began in Albany, becoming a popular figure among New York Democrats through his political tactics leading up to the upset of the Tammany machine.
After winning re-election for his seat in the New York State Senate in 1912, he became chairman of the Agriculture Committee, successfully passing farm and labor bills that served as a precursor to his New Deal policies twenty years later.
In 1912, Roosevelt supported Woodrow Wilson's successful bid for the presidential election. He later resigned his seat in the State Senate to accept his position in the Wilson administration as Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Navy.
As if his strong political gumption was not enough to prove his determination to succeed, Roosevelt also overcame a bout of typhoid in 1912, the flu epidemic of 1918, and eventually a debilitating bout of polio in 1921.
Roosevelt was focused on helping New Yorkers after having assumed the governorship at the onset of the Great Depression, advocating for a federal old-age pension, and creating the Temporary Relief Administration to help the unemployed. Presidency soon followed, and Franklin Roosevelt became the only man in history to ever be elected four terms in the White House, eventually brining the country out of an economic depression and World War II.