Word: roosevelts
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...wage war against the English and Prussian armies before his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. (It actually took 111 days, but we'll give him a mulligan.) Napoleon reclaimed power in 1815, however; Americans didn't start assessing their Presidents in 100-day increments until Franklin Delano Roosevelt came along more than a century later...
...Roosevelt was a presidential overachiever - and his swift, take-charge method of governing was exactly what an ailing, Depression-weary nation needed in 1933. After delivering one of the most famous Inaugural speeches in presidential history - does the phrase "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" sound familiar? - Roosevelt had been in office barely 24 hours when he declared a four-day bank holiday and drafted the Emergency Banking Act, which helped calm a financial panic that was quickly spiraling out of control. By the time he hit the 100-day mark, Roosevelt had instituted the "fireside...
...Roosevelt was enormously popular (hence the fourth term), and later administrations have tried to associate themselves with his early success. "Jerk out every damn little bill you can," President Lyndon Johnson reportedly commanded his strategist Larry O'Brien in 1965. "Put out that propaganda ... that [we've] done more than they did in Roosevelt's hundred days." Propaganda or not, Johnson actually had a very effective 100-day run: after being sworn in as Kennedy's sudden and unexpected successor, he advanced the passage of the Civil Rights Bill, established the Warren Commission to investigate J.F.K.'s assassination...
Ronald Reagan beat Roosevelt's 24-hour effectiveness record when the 52 U.S. diplomats held hostage by Iranian militants for 444 days were released on Jan. 20, 1981 - the same day on which he took office. Reagan's next 99 days were a bit more subdued, but they still featured $41.4 billion in proposed budget cuts, large tax breaks, the formation of an oversight council to combat government corruption and a dramatic assassination attempt. When John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan on March 30, 1981, the President's approval rating jumped as high as 68%, but by the 100-day mark...
Barack Obama may be the first President to actually rival Roosevelt in terms of the sheer number of changes. Only 6% into his 1,461-day term, Obama has already signed a $700 billion stimulus bill, tried to bail out Detroit, lifted a ban on stem-cell research, planned a withdrawal from Iraq, reached out to Cuba and authorized the release of Bush-era torture memos. Oh, and he got a dog. Roosevelt didn't adopt his beloved Fala until the end of his second term...