FDR was a game-changer. From time to time, we have a president who is a game-changer, who so fundamentally changes the course of our nation's history that it is impossible to imagine an America without them. All of the great presidents were game-changers to some degree, but for sheer volume of change, of social progress, it's hard to beat FDR. Consider: before FDR, black Americans still voted (when they were allowed to vote all) solidly Republican, a habituated debt to the party of Lincoln. It was under FDR that the nascent civil rights movement found a home in the Democratic party. From Social Security to the modern military-industrial machine, FDR fundamentally reshaped the American nation, and in so doing reshaped the world. The United States in 1945 was a far more modern and progressive nation than it was in 1933, the result of the priorities FDR set, the policy he implemented, the legislative priorities he pursued. Other than the founding of the country and the Civil War, it's difficult to find a period in history that has so profoundly shaped our country, nor a figure so singularly responsible. George Washington, the Father of Our Country. Abraham Lincoln, who saved the Union. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who made us a Superpower.