On this day in 1938, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, himself an adult victim of polio, founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which he later renamed the March of Dimes Foundation, Mostly known as a childhood disease in the early 20th century, polio wreaked havoc on American children every summer. The virus, which affects the central nervous system, thrived in contaminated food and water and was easily transmitted. Those lucky enough to survive the disease usually suffered from debilitating paralysis into their adult lives. In 1921, at the relatively advanced age of 39, Roosevelt contracted polio and lost the use of his legs. With the help of the media and Secret Service, Roosevelt managed to keep his disease under wraps, yet his personal experience made his empathize with the handicapped and led him to the found the March of Dimes. In 1926, Roosevelt started the non-profit Georgia Warm Springs Foundation on the site of the springs he visited to avail of the waters’ thera...