Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was diagnosed with polio at age
39 in 1921 after falling ill while vacationing at Campobello Island,
Canada.

The illness resulted in permanent paralysis from the waist down,
though some medical experts now suggest his symptoms were
more consistent with Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Despite the crippling effects of the disease, Roosevelt used his
experience to create the Warm Springs Foundation to help 
others with polio.      

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wheelchair on display at the New
York State Capitol in Albany, N.Y. (2016). Roosevelt used
this wheelchair at the Executive Mansion during his term
as governor from 1928 to 1932.

On August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812 between the United
States and England, British troops enter Washington, D.C. and
burn the White House in retaliation for the American attack on
the city of York in Ontario, Canada, in June 1813.

When the British arrived at the White House, they found that
President James Madison and his first lady Dolley had already
fled to safety in Maryland.

Madison served the rest of his term residing at the city’s Octagon
House. It was not until 1817 that newly elected president James
Monroe moved back into the reconstructed building.

James Madison (1751 – 1836)     
   

James Monroe (1758 – 1831)

Though he had landed on the beaches of Normandy and been
wounded in battle fighting with the U.S. Army, Staff Sergeant
Marcario García was not yet a U.S. citizen when President
Harry S. Truman awarded him the Medal of Honor on August
23, 1945. García became the first Mexican national to receive
the American military’s highest honor.

President Truman honoring Macario Garcia.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Social
Security Act on August 14, 1935.

Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by
ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic
act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and
retirees in the wake of the Great Depression.

   
CAMILLE BOHANNON

On August 9, 1945, a second atomic bomb is dropped on
Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally
in Japan’s unconditional surrender.