Theodore Roosevelt was born into a wealthy New York family. His father was a merchant. The young Roosevelt was a frail, sickly child. But he improved his health by boxing, wrestling, hunting, and horseback riding. As a boy, Roosevelt studied under private tutors. In 1880, he graduated from Harvard University. He studied law briefly, but he never finished law school. Roosevelt was elected to the New York state legislature in 1881.
In 1889, President BENJAMIN HARRISON appointed Roosevelt to the U.S. Civil Service Commission. In 1895, Roosevelt became a member of the New York City Police Board. Two years later, President WILLIAM MCKINLEY made him assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy. Shortly thereafter, Spanish warships destroyed the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. In retaliation, Roosevelt ordered an attack on the Spanish fleet in the Philippines. His order had not been authorized by the secretary of the Navy.
When the Spanish-American War broke out, Roosevelt resigned from the Navy Department. He organized his own military unit, the Roughriders. On July 1, 1898, Roosevelt led a small group of Roughriders in the famous charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba. For his bravery, Roosevelt was promoted to the rank of colonel.
After the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt was a national hero. In the fall of 1898, he was easily elected governor of New York. Two years later, the Republican Party nominated him for vice president. President McKinley was the presidential candidate. Four months after they were elected, the president was assassinated in Buffalo, New York.
After McKinley's death in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president in U.S. history. He was 42 years old. The new president was widely known as TR. He was a popular president. Roosevelt was reelected in 1904. When his second term ended, Roosevelt supported WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT for president. After Taft was inaugurated, the former president left the United States for a safari in Africa.
Roosevelt s trip lasted for more than a year. He returned to the United States in 1910. By then, he had grown unhappy with the Taft administration. He thought it too dull and conservative. In 1912, Roosevelt decided to run for president again. He announced that his "hat... [was] in the ring." But the Republican Party refused to renominate him. Roosevelt was nominated by the Progressive (or Bull Moose) Party.
In 1912 fall campaign, the former president survived an assassination attempt. But he lost the general election to WOODROW WILSON. After 1912, Roosevelt was tired of politics. When the Progressives tried to renominate him in 1916, he declined to run. For the rest of his life, Roosevelt traveled and hunted in his spare time. He had always been a writer. He continued writing books. (Roosevelt wrote more than 20 books.)
In the last years of his life, Roosevelt went on an expedition to Brazil. The Brazilians named the Rio Roosevelt River for him. In 1917, he became a columnist for the Kansas City Star newspaper. He wrote the column until his death. In 1919, Roosevelt died at his Sagamore Hill estate. Theodore Roosevelt is buried at Young s Memorial Cemetery in Oyster Bay, New York.
