Cool button from Teddy Roosevelt’s winning 1898 campaign for governor of New York. Via the Clinton Ivan Winslow Political Memorabilia Collection in the Goucher College Library Special Collections

Theodore Roosevelt & The Rough Riders Filmed around September 1898 in Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, Long Island, this footage shows Col. Roosevelt, surrounded by prominent officers of the Rough Riders, galloping up to his headquarters, dismounting and walking toward his tent. From The Library of Congress

Theodore Roosevelt’s taxidermy kit Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was born on October 27, 1858, in a four-story brownstone at 28 East 20th Street, in the modern-day Gramercy section of New York City, the second of four children and elder son of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. (1831–1878) and Martha “Mittie” Bulloch (1835–1884). Roosevelt had an older sister, Anna “Bamie” Roosevelt, and two younger siblings: Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt (the father of First Lady Anna Eleanor Roosevelt) and Corinne Roosevelt.

Sickly and asthmatic as a child, Roosevelt had to sleep propped up in bed or slouching in a chair during much of his early years, and had frequent ailments. Despite his illnesses, he was hyperactive and often mischievous. His lifelong interest in zoology was formed at age seven upon seeing a dead seal at a local market. After obtaining the seal’s head, the young Roosevelt and two of his cousins formed what they called the “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History”. Learning the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals that he killed or caught, studied, and prepared for display. At age nine, he codified his observation of insects with a paper titled “The Natural History of Insects”.

President Theodore Roosevelt in a procession along W. Jackson Blvd. in the Loop. He was in Chicago during the Progressive Party National Convention held from August 5-7, 1912. The photograph was taken on August 6, 1912 by Chicago Daily News, Inc.

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Theodore Roosevelt first traveled west in 1883 to pursue his boyhood dreams of frontier life. When he returned to New York in 1886, he began to lobby for conservation.

TR and his family were famous for the pets they kept in the White House. One of the standouts was Josiah, a badger given to TR by a little girl in Sharon Springs, Kansas. The President adored the badger, sometimes even feeding him from a baby bottle. According to historian Douglas Brinkley, “As a species, badgers have some undesirable traits: they are unpredictable, frequently carry parasites, have sharp claws, and vomit often in captivity.” Image: Archie Roosevelt and Josiah Houghton Library, Harvard University

A young Theodore Roosevelt, ca.1875

Theodore Roosevelt Was Shot in the Chest During a Speech and Kept Reading…Like a Boss

Photo: An X-ray of Roosevelt’s chest shows how close the bullet (embedded in rib on left) came to piercing his lung. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Ed note: We already knew Roosevelt was awesome but this just pushes him over the top.

Hey Theodore Roosevelt, remember that time someone tried to assassinate you, but you just laughed and proceeded to give a 90-minute long speech with the bullet lodged in your lung, where it remained for the rest of your life? Or when you tore up your leg after being thrown into piranha-infested waters while exploring uncharted Brazil? Or all those times you broke your ribs from falling off horses while doing bad-ass jumps? Or when you destroyed the sight in your left eye in a White House boxing match? Or that time you killed a cougar in a knife fight (seriously.)? And how the only way death could finally get to you was in your sleep, in the early morning on this day in 1919. Here's to TR as the infinite inspiration for pure, condensed badassery. ;)

Theodore Roosevelt, October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919

“Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake there would have been a fight.”

omfg these notes i am just so happy that so many tumblr people are spreading the luv for teddy ;___; 

^ you’re making me love him.

Been saying it for years, this was was a Real Life Batman. Right down to bicycling around New York's bad back alley's whooping people's asses with a stick he carried.