Who was President during World War II?

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of the United States during most of World War II, serving from his first inauguration on March 4, 1933 until his death on April 12, 1945, less than a month before Germany surrendered. Often referred to as FDR, Roosevelt was the only American president elected to four terms, winning in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. His unprecedented tenure later led to the Twenty-Second Amendment, ratified in 1951, which limits presidents to two elected terms.

Roosevelt had already used the presidency to push the New Deal through Congress between 1933 and 1939, transforming the federal response to the Great Depression. As war approached, he began preparing the United States gradually. He pushed Congress to authorize the first peacetime draft in September 1940 and signed the Lend-Lease Act on March 11, 1941, which provided weapons, food, and supplies to Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and other Allies.

After Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan with his famous date which will live in infamy speech, and within days the United States was at war with Germany and Italy as well. As wartime commander in chief, Roosevelt mobilized American industry on a massive scale. The economy grew about fifty percent during the war, factories produced more than 300,000 aircraft and 86,000 tanks, and unemployment fell from about 14 percent in 1940 to under 2 percent by 1944.

Roosevelt also worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, meeting at the Atlantic Conference off Newfoundland in August 1941, the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the Tehran Conference in November 1943, and the Yalta Conference in February 1945. He shaped the demand for unconditional surrender of the Axis powers and the planning of the postwar United Nations. Roosevelt approved the Manhattan Project but did not live to see its first weapons used.

He authorized the controversial internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans through Executive Order 9066 in February 1942. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia on April 12, 1945, succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman. Roosevelt is consistently ranked among the greatest American presidents.