How Each of the Last 15 Presidents Managed His First 100 Days

by

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s action-packed first 100 days in office set a new yardstick for all presidents who followed. Here are highlights of the first 100 days of the past 15 presidents, as well as Gallup approval ratings at that stage for those who were elected starting in the 1950s.

Roosevelt signing a farm relief bill. Bettmann Archive, via Getty Images

Assumed office in the depths of the Great Depression and rescued the banking system, took the nation off the gold standard and established the foundation of the New Deal by signing 15 major bills into law affecting agriculture, industry, energy production and social welfare.

82 percent approval rating at 100 days

Truman with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin at the Potsdam summit in 1945.No 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit — Imperial War Museums, via Getty Images

Presided during the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, the signing of the U.N. Charter and the testing of the first atomic bomb. Also met with allied leaders at the Potsdam summit to map out the postwar world.