Today in History - April 12: President dies midway through having portrait painted
President Franklin Roosevelt died midway through having his portrait painted on April 12, 1945.
Roosevelt was being painted by watercolour artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff when he remarked: "I have a terrific headache".
He then fell into unconsciousness, having suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
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President Franklin Roosevelt died midway through this portrait being painted. Elizabeth Shoumatoff
Shoumatoff never finished the portrait, but painted a completed one from memory.
The two paintings hang side-by-side in the home where he died, his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia.
Roosevelt's poor health had been a secret for decades.
Very few Americans knew the president used a wheelchair, having contracted what was believed to be polio.
But he had taken a turn for the worse the previous year, and feared he would have to resign the presidency.
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Shoumatoff painted a completed one from memory. Elizabeth Shoumatoff
Nevertheless, he ran for re-election in 1944 for a historic fourth term, believing no-one else was up to the job.
He had come to believe his previous vice president Henry Wallace was a liability, and had replaced him with Harry Truman.
But Roosevelt and Truman did not really know each other, and only met twice during the vice president's time in office.
When Truman was told by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt that her husband had died, he asked her: "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now!" she replied.
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Harry Truman had only been vice president a very short amount of time when Franklin Roosevelt died. Getty
He was sworn in as president later that evening.
Truman had not been told Roosevelt was in terrible health, and only found out about the development of the atomic bomb on the day of his death.
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