Theodore Roosevelt was born on 27 October 1858. A sickly child with debilitating asthma, he overcame his health problems through a regime of vigorous exercise he called “the strenuous life”, and went on to study at Harvard. He helped form and lead the Rough Riders in the Spanish–American War, was elected governor of New York in 1898, and was elected vice president, as William McKinley’s running mate, in 1900.
He became president after the assassination of William McKinley and served from 1901 to 1909, the youngest person to hold the office. He broke up corporate trusts, set aside national parks, forests and monuments, and began the Panama Canal, and his efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. He died on 6 January 1919.