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This Day in History: November 5

In this post, I touch on the election (or reelection) of U.S. presidents who guided the country through two bloody, destructive global wars.

November 5, 1912: Woodrow Wilson beats two ex presidents in a landslide victory

Democrat Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th president of the United States, with Thomas R. Marshall as vice president. In a landslide Democratic victory, Wilson secured 435 electoral votes against the eight won by Republican incumbent William Howard Taft and the 88 snagged by Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. It remains the only election in American history where two former presidents were defeated by another candidate.

During his two terms in office, Wilson oversaw U.S. entry into World War I; proposed the Fourteen Points, a statement of principles that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end the global war; and championed the League of Nations, an international organization formed to prevent future armed conflict. Because of opposition from isolationists in Congress, the U.S. did not join the League.

November 5, 1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt re-elected president

 On this day in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is re-elected for an unprecedented third term as president of the United States.

Roosevelt was elected to a third term with the promise of maintaining American neutrality as far as foreign wars were concerned. But as Hitler’s war spread, and the desperation of Britain grew, the president pushed for passage of the Lend-Lease Act in Congress in March 1941, which would funnel financial aid to Great Britain and other allies. In August, Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to proclaim the Atlantic Charter, which would become the basis of the United Nations; they also drafted a statement to the effect that the United States “would be compelled to take countermeasures” should Japan further encroach in the southwest Pacific.

Despite ongoing negotiations with Japan, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor was the final straw.  Roosevelt requested, and received, a declaration of war against Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Germany and Japan surrendered in 1945, effectively ending World War II.
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