1944 United States presidential election 1944 United States presidential election The United States presidential election of 1944 was the 40th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. The election took place during World War II. Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Roosevelt had become the first president to win a third term with his victory in the 1940 presidential election, and there was little doubt that he would seek a fourth term. Unlike in 1940, Roosevelt faced little opposition within his own party, and he easily won the presidential nomination of the 1944 Democratic National Convention. However, that
Paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt Paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt The paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt began in 1921 when the future President of the United States was 39 years old. His main symptoms were fever; symmetric, ascending paralysis; facial paralysis; bowel and bladder dysfunction; numbness and hyperesthesia; and a descending pattern of recovery. Roosevelt was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He was diagnosed with poliomyelitis at the time, but his symptoms are more consistent with Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) – an autoimmune neuropathy which Roosevelt's doctors failed to consider as a diagnostic possibility. In 1926, his belief in the benefits of