Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was an American politician who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He was born in New York City in 1858 and died in 1919. At 42 years old, he became the youngest person ever to hold the office. People often called him by his initials, TR, or by the nickname "Teddy."

Roosevelt was a sickly child with bad asthma. His parents thought he might not live to grow up. As a boy, he started lifting weights, boxing, hiking, and riding horses to make his body stronger. He kept up this kind of hard exercise for the rest of his life. He also loved books and read thousands of them, often finishing one a day.

After college, Roosevelt worked as a rancher in the Dakotas, served in the New York state government, and led the New York City police. When the Spanish-American War started in 1898, he formed a group of cowboys and college athletes called the Rough Riders. They fought a famous charge up a hill in Cuba. Roosevelt came home a national hero.

He was elected vice president in 1900. Less than a year later, President William McKinley was shot and killed, and Roosevelt suddenly became president. He used the office in bold new ways. He broke up huge companies that had grown too powerful. He pushed for laws that made food and medicine safer. He helped end a war between Russia and Japan, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for that work. He was the first American to win it.

Roosevelt cared deeply about nature. As president, he protected about 230 million acres of public land, an area larger than the state of Texas. He created five national parks, 18 national monuments, and the U.S. Forest Service. The teddy bear is even named after him, after a hunting trip where he refused to shoot a bear that had been tied up.

He also pushed the United States to act like a world power. He sent the Navy on a trip around the globe to show off American strength. He pushed hard for the building of the Panama Canal, which connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

After leaving office, Roosevelt ran for president again in 1912 with a new "Bull Moose" Party, but he lost. He went on long trips to Africa and the Amazon, where he nearly died of fever. His face is one of four carved into Mount Rushmore.