He saved the national pastime in the wake of the Black Sox scandal—and permanently linked sports and celebrity.
He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and then he proved it.
As a general, he organized the American effort in World War II; as a statesman, he rebuilt Western Europe.
America’s most significant architect, he was the archetype of the visionary artist at odds with capitalism.
The mind behind Pragmatism, America’s most important philosophical school.
Through his newspaper, The Liberator, he became the voice of abolition.
The Monroe Doctrine’s real author, he set nineteenth-century America’s diplomatic course.
The defining chief justice, he established the Supreme Court as the equal of the other two federal branches.
His leadership made the American Revolution possible; his devotion to republicanism made it succeed.
He made the United States possible—not only by defeating a king, but by declining to become one himself.
The Founder-of-all-trades— scientist, printer, writer, diplomat, inventor, and more; like his country, he contained multitudes.