THOMAS WOODROW WILSON was the 28th president of the United States. Born December 28, 1856, he was an American scholar and statesman best remembered for his nobility of spirit and his leadership of the United States in World War I. Wilson was born to religious and educated people, mainly of Scottish descent. Wilson's father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, studied for the clergy at Princeton Presbyterian University. He married Janet Woodrow, and in the early 1850s the Wilsons moved to Virginia, where he became minister of a church in Staunton. There, in 1856, Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born, first son and third child. Apparently dyslexic since childhood, Wilson did not learn to read until age 10 and never became a speed reader. Nevertheless, he developed a passionate interest in literature and especially in politics. He attended Davidson College in North Carolina for a year before entering Princeton University in 1875. At Princeton, he flourished intellectually, reading widely, engaging in debate, and editing the Journal of the university. After graduating from Princeton in 1879, Wilson studied law at the University of North Carolina. Virginia, with the hope that it would lead to politics. However, he proved insensitive to the intricacies of the law and mastered them only reluctantly. Although his work was remarkable, he found public speaking and political history more satisfying. Despite intermittent illness, he earned his law degree and in 1882 moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he opened a law office. In 1883 he tired of the firm and abandoned his law career for graduate studies in government and history at Johns Hopkins University, where in 1886 he received a doctorate. Wilson's doctoral dissertation was also his first book, Congressional Government: A Study in. American Politics (1885), which further develops its comparison between American government and parliamentary government and suggests reforms that would make the American system more efficient and more accountable to public opinion. Accepted and published in early 1885, it sold well. Influential critics found Wilson's attitude toward American democracy novel and thought-provoking. Wilson had been engaged for several years to Ellen Louise Axson and they were married in June 1885. Competent and vivacious, Ellen proved the ideal companion for her husband. She gave him unreserved support and helped him free his mind from all the paper circles of the League of Nations. Wilson left the White House in March 1921, a broken man. The 1920 election was a landslide victory won by conservative Republican Warren Harding, who called for a return to "normal" and a rejection of all of Wilson's domestic and foreign policies. After leaving office, he retired to a home in Washington, D.C., and mostly disappeared from public view. Wilson died in his sleep at his home in Washington. His remains were buried in the newly started National Cathedral; he is the only president buried in the capital. During World War II, Wilson's reputation soared, as he came to be seen as a wrongly ignored prophet whose policies would have prevented a global calamity. The United Nations and collective security pacts are seen as the realization of Wilson's internationalist vision. http://www.encarta.msn.com/ http://www.britannia.com/