Woodrow Wilson, the 28th U.S. president, led America through World War I and crafted the Versailles Treaty’s “Fourteen Points,” the last of which was creating a League of Nations to ensure world peace. Wilson also created the Federal Reserve and supported the 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote.
• Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American statesman, lawyer, and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921, and was the leading architect of the League of Nations.
• Born: December 28, 1856, Staunton, VA
• Died: February 3, 1924, The President Woodrow Wilson House, Washington, D.C.
• Presidential term: March 4, 1913 – March 4, 1921
• Education: Johns Hopkins University (1883–1886)
• Spouse: Edith Wilson (m. 1915–1924), Ellen Axson Wilson (m. 1885–1914)
• First president to declare a national emergency.
• First president to have a Ph.D.
• First president to visit Europe while in office, in 1918–19 he visited: France, the United Kingdom, Italy (along with the Holy See, not yet a sovereign nation), and Belgium.
• First president to meet with the pope while in office, Pope Benedict XV in 1919.
• First president to meet with a reigning British monarch while in office, George V in 1918.
• First president to hold a press conference or regular news briefings.
• First president to appoint a Jew (Louis Brandeis) to the Supreme Court.
• First president to attend a World Series game. Wilson attended Game 2 of the 1915 World Series in Philadelphia between the Boston Red Sox and the Philadelphia Phillies.
• First president to be buried in Washington D.C. Wilson died in 1924, and was interred in a sarcophagus in Washington National Cathedral.
• First president to have separate secretaries of commerce and labor.
• First president to serve as president of Princeton University.
• First president to be absent from the country for more than one month while in office.