Wendell Willkie (1892–1944) was an American corporate executive and the 1940 Republican candidate for president. In 1933 he became president of Commonwealth & Southern Corporation (C&S;), a utility holding company. He fought against President Franklin Roosevelt's Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a publicly owned competitor of C&S; though unsuccessful, he sold C&S;'s property to the TVA for a good price, and gained public esteem. A longtime Democratic activist, Willkie changed his party registration to Republican in late 1939. He did not run in the 1940 presidential primaries, but positioned himself as an acceptable choice for a deadlocked convention. As German forces under Hitler rampaged through Western Europe in the spring of 1940, many Republicans did not wish to nominate an isolationist like Thomas E. Dewey, and turned to Willkie, who was nominated on the sixth ballot. His support for aid to Britain paralleled Roosevelt's, defying Republican opposition. Roosevelt won a third term, taking 38 of the 48 states and 55 percent of the vote. Willkie made two wartime foreign trips as Roosevelt's informal envoy.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Willkie
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
680:
Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad, was killed in the Battle of Karbala by the forces of Yazid I, whom Husayn had refused to recognise as caliph. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karbala
1780:
One of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record struck the Caribbean Sea, killing at least 22,000 people over the next several days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hurricane_of_1780
1846:
English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(moon)
1943:
World War II: The Kempeitai, the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army, arrested and tortured over 50 civilians and civilian internees on suspicion of their involvement in a raid on Singapore Harbour during Operation Jaywick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Tenth_incident
1998:
General Augusto Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations committed in his native Chile and arrested in London six days later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Augusto_Pinochet
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
biannual: 1. Occurring twice a year; semiannual. 2. (proscribed, through conflation with biennial) Occurring once every two years; biennial. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/biannual
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot. --Lin Yutang https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lin_Yutang