On this day in 1933, during the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the thirty-second president of the United States. He served 4 terms.

A New Deal. When he accepted the Democratic nomination for president, FDR pledged to create "...a new deal for the American people." The New Deal became the term that described all of Roosevelt's later efforts to help the tens of millions of people who lost their homes, their jobs, and their savings during the Great Depression of the 1930s, at a time when there were few government programs to help the needy.

Nothing to Fear. During his inaugural address, President Roosevelt told Americans that the only thing they had to fear "was fear itself."

The First 100 Days. In his first "hundred days," FDR proposed, and Congress enacted, a program that brought recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Things Are Looking Up... By 1935 the US was in a state of recovery. But businessmen and bankers opposed Roosevelt's New Deal program. Roosevelt had taken the country off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget.

New Reforms. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.