April 12

Everyone remembered where they were when they heard the news: the president is dead. On this day in 1945, President Franklin Roosevelt died at the Little White House in warm springs.

Roosevelt had come to Warm Springs 41 times since 1924. FDR was sitting for a portrait when he complained of a headache. He fainted and never regained consciousness. He died at 3:35 p.m. from a massive cerebral hemorrhage. The news stunned the nation.

Like Lincoln, FDR died just on the verge of victory in a great war. For many Americans, the four-term president was the only one they had ever known, leading them out of the Great Depression and through World War II.

As Roosevelt’s body left Warm Springs for the last time, Graham Jackson, a musician who often played for FDR, played Dvorak’s “Going Home” on the accordion with tears streaming down his face.

The Little White House now serves as a memorial to the president who died there on April 12, 1945, Today in Georgia History.