Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858, in New York, New York, in the United States.

And
died on January 6, 1919, in Oyster Bay, New York at age 60. He was a sickly child in his youth, suffering
from a strong case of asthma. Theodore overcame his health issues via a strenuous lifestyle (boxing,
gymnastics, weightlifting, rugby), as well as growing out of his asthma naturally later on. He was home-
schooled, and he began a lifelong pursuit of the outdoors before attending Harvard College in the 1870s.

After finishing Harvard in 1880, Roosevelt married Alice Hathaway Lee and entered Columbia University
Law School, later dropping out after only one year to enter public service. He was elected to the New
York State Assembly at the age of 23 and served two terms in that position (1882-1884). His wife and
mother succumbed to Bright’s disease (typhoid) on the same day in 1884. A grieving Roosevelt spent the
next two years on a ranch in the Badlands of the Dakota, where he hunted big game, drove cattle and
worked as a frontier sheriff. Upon returning to New York, he married his childhood sweetheart, Edith
Kermit Carow. The couple raised six children, including Alice; Roosevelt’s daughter from his first
marriage.

He then served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley, later resigning from
that position to lead the Rough Riders during the Spanish–American War (1898). He was then elected
Governor of New York in 1898 after the war. Vice President Garret Hobart died, and McKinley was
convinced to accept Roosevelt as his running mate in the 1900 election by the New York state party
leadership. Roosevelt campaigned, and the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a
platform of peace, prosperity, and conservation.