What disease crippled President Franklin D. Roosevelt and led him to help the nation find a cure?

The story behind the answer

Polio is correct. Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted poliomyelitis in 1921 at age 39, leaving him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He used leg braces and a wheelchair, often minimizing his disability in public, while leading the U.S. through the Great Depression and World War II.

Determined to fight the disease, FDR founded the Warm Springs rehabilitation center in Georgia and launched the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis—better known as the March of Dimes—which mobilized small donations nationwide. Those funds supported research that led to Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine in 1955 (and later Albert Sabin’s oral vaccine). Memory tip: P for President, Polio, and Paralysis—Roosevelt turned personal adversity into a national crusade that helped conquer a devastating childhood disease.