On this day in 1945, President Franklin Deleno Roosevelt collapsed and died of a cerebral haemorrhage while sitting for a portrait. Harry Truman would be sworn in as the 33rd President.

Nicknamed FDR, Roosevelt's presidency spanned 12 years. It was marked by the most significant domestic crisis for the United States since the civil war, the Great Depression, and it's most momentous foreign one, the Second World War.

FDR's optimism, hope and political capability culminated in the 'New Deal' series of economic experiments to get the U.S moving again from the quagmire of the depression.

Despite partial paralysis of the legs resulting from contracting polio, Roosevelt's tenacity in his own recovery enabled him to set about reform and recovery for the U.S economy, declaring that Americans "had nothing to fear but fear itself".

One man alone could not put at end to economic depression, it was war that helped turn the tide for a new American future.

Roosevelt led the U.S to the brink of victory over fascism and cemented its position by emerging from those dark years of war as the world's foremost economic, political and military power.