We got onto the subject of Theodore Roosevelt in the flying-boat thread. He is definitely worth a thread to himself, and not to be lost in another thread. I was reading the Wikipedia articles on him and his relatives a few months ago. He's less well known outside the US than FDR, but he was the archetypal all-American hero. Which was probably why he was less successful as President. In many ways he was the American equivalent of Churchill, being a man of action, a larger than life character, a great leader but not always displaying good judgement as a politician. Recently, he was retrospectively awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for an action at San Juan Hill in Cuba, in the Spanish-American War, in 1898. This makes him part one of very few father-and-sons to be awarded the Medal of Honor, because his son Theodore was awarded it for his leadership as a Brigadier-General at Utah beach, but sadly died of a heart attack a few days later. The older Theodore himself was tipped to return to the White House to succeed Woodrow Wilson as President after WW1, but died at 58 in 1919. Another son Kermit (yes, we've done that joke) served in an British Armoured Car unit in Mesopotamia in 1917-18. Another son, Quentin, died aged 20 as a fighter pilot over the Western Front. There is a video clip on the Wikipedia article showing him going for a flight, in about 1912 - surely the first US president to fly.
Indeed, Teddy certainly was a definitive figure in American History. He was in fact the first president to take to the air, I believe afterward he said something along the lines of "personally, I will stay on the ground if given the choice in the future"
Also the only person I can think of who has won their country's highest military medal AND the Nobel Peace Prize (for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War). Interesting you should mention 'firsts' Adrian, as he seems to accomplished quite a few: In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901. Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt. In August, 1902, Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to take a public automobile ride. This occurred during a parade in Hartford, Connecticut In 1910 he became the first U.S. President to ride in an airplane. On August 25, 1905 he became the first U.S. President to ride in a military submarine when he boarded the USS Plunger (SS-2) and ran submerged with her for 55 minutes. [52] In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9. In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection. In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize. In 2001, he became the first and only President up to date to receive a Medal of Honor, making him the only person to date to win the world's highest peace honor, as well as his nation's top military honor. He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York. He was the first President to officially refer to the White House as such, on his official stationery. This had been the common name (referring to the color of the building), but until then, the official name was "The Executive Mansion" He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait. He was the first President to approve a coin, the Lincoln cent, with a man's face on it, in 1909, just in time for the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Lincoln was Roosevelt's presidential hero. He was the first President to coin an internationally recognized trademark, although not deliberately. His offhand remark, "good to the last drop," about some coffee drunk at the Maxwell House hotel in Tennessee, see Maxwell House coffee.[citation needed] He is the only president to have a famous toy named after him (the Teddy bear, named after a bear he refused to shoot in a 1902 hunt in Mississippi). He was the first U.S. president to study Judo. Theodore Roosevelt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There is still considerable debate about whether Roosevelt and his group played the pivotal role that has been claimed. I know very little about the war and that particular incident but I remembered this article that disputes the general consensus: http://www.history.army.mil/documents/spanam/BSSJH/BS-SJH.htm
