Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) contracted polio in 1921. He developed acute symptoms of poliomyelitis on August 10, 1921, while visiting his summer home on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada, at the age of 39. It is believed that he was likely infected with the virus around July 28, 1921, at a Boy Scout encampment at Bear Mountain, New York. The disease left him with paralysis from the waist down, and he never walked without leg braces or support again.