It was on this date in 1918 that Woodrow Wilson—the president who had narrowly won re-election on the slogan "He kept us out of the war"—went before Congress to spell out America's objectives for the worldwide conflict, then nine months old. Wilson began the presentation of his Fourteen Points by observing, "what we demand in this war . . . is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation, which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression."

What's the point of talking about Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points today? It was in that speech that the one-time college president laid out the argument that morality and ethics should underlie the foreign policy of a democratic society. And although Wilson later failed to persuade the Senate to ratify the Versailles Treaty ending the first World War (the President pleaded, "Dare we reject it and break the heart of the world?"), his Fourteen Points, which would have established a general association of nations, is considered the forerunner of the United Nations.