Franklin Delano Roosevelt projected boundless confidence while secretly relying on heavy iron leg braces just to stand. This deep dive traces his journey from a sheltered Hudson River childhood with private tutors and European travel, through Groton, Harvard and a rejection by the Porcellian Club, to a career modeled on his cousin Theodore Roosevelt and a complicated marriage to Eleanor.

The episode covers his campaign against Tammany Hall, his time as assistant secretary of the Navy, the Lucy Mercer affair, and the 1921 illness, long called polio, that left him paralyzed from the waist down. It then examines the Great Depression, the first 100 days, the New Deal, fireside chats, court packing, World War II leadership, Japanese American internment and his death in April 1945.

• How his domineering mother Sara and the 1918 affair reshaped his marriage into a political partnership
• The grueling rehabilitation and stagecraft used to hide his paralysis, and how Warm Springs deepened his empathy
• The New Deal’s relief, recovery and reform goals, the bank holiday and the Fair Labor Standards Act
• The debate over whether the New Deal ended the Depression or mainly redefined the American social contract
• Pearl Harbor, the Europe-first strategy, the Manhattan Project, Yalta and a fourth term won despite failing health