Giants of History presents Theodore Roosevelt episode number 10. Welcome to Giants of History and thank you for joining us. Death had to take him sleeping, for if he had been awake there would have been a fight.

Vice President Thomas Marshall's remark when he had heard of the circumstances of Theodore Roosevelt's death.

It was March 27, 1914, and one month since Roosevelt and the expedition team had put their

small boats into the rise of the River of Doubt in the dense

jungle wilderness of Brazil.

They were working their way around a violent rapid when one of the boats fell into the

water and was quickly rushed away in the current.

Roosevelt was one of the first into the water after the boat,

as every possible boat was needed to make the rest of the trip.

The boat was successfully recovered, but Roosevelt, in his struggle

in the water, had cut his right leg on a rock. This was bad news. The cut quickly became

infected and Roosevelt began to walk with a limp as the ache throbbed day and night.

Vultures began to circle the men as they walked.

Then the other men and the crew were struck with dysentery and fever.

The expedition continued to deteriorate.

Soon after Roosevelt cut his leg, the men came upon a two-mile stretch of a series of cliffs and waterfalls that dropped a hundred feet over their course.

There was no way to travel down this, and the expedition was forced to abandon everything but what they could carry themselves.

They would then have to hike inland and around till they got back to where the river leveled

out.

Roosevelt took only the clothes he was wearing, a change of underwear, his black manuscript box as he was still

writing for Scribners all this while, his rifle, a spare pair of spectacles, and a few other

personal effects.

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