Thomas Woodrow Wilson

THOMAS Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia on December 28, 1856.

He served as the 28th President of the United States of America, from 1913 to 1921.

That meant he was the American leader when the First World War began in 1914 and ended in 1918.

After the outbreak of the war, Wilson sought to maintain American neutrality and didn’t want to take sides.

He was re-elected US President in 1916 on the slogan, ‘He kept us out of war’.

The year before, in May 1915, a German submarine torpedoed and sank the British ocean liner Lusitania, killing more than 1,000 people, including over 100 Americans.

This angered Americans and, although Wilson stayed neutral, he warned Germany that any further loss of American life would mean reprisals.

The Germans pushed the US to the brink in 1917, resuming submarine warfare against American merchant ships and proposing that Mexico form an alliance with Germany against the US in the event of any American entry into the First World War.

In April 1917, after Wilson had asked the United States Congress to declare war in order to make the “world safe for democracy”, America entered the conflict on Britain’s side.

By mid-1918, thousands of American soldiers had been sent to Europe, helping to win the war for Britain and France.

Wilson retired from public office in 1921 and died in 1924, aged 67.

Incidentally, Wilson House, close to Strabane in Co Tyrone, was the home of Woodrow Wilson’s grandfather, James Wilson.

The house is now owned by the Ulster American Folk Park.