Portal:Military of the United States/Selected biography/3

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Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), was the 26th President of the United States. At age 42, he became President after the assassination of President William McKinley. As Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy he prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, the "Rough Riders", during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero he was elected Republican governor in 1898. He was a professional historian, naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin.

Roosevelt understood the strategic significance of the Panama Canal, and negotiated for the U.S. to take control of its construction in 1904. It was completed in 1914, after he left office. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating peace between Russia and Japan.