Top 10 February 18 Birthdays
Honorable Mention: February 18, 1892: Wendell Willkie. A corporate lawyer from Indiana, he was unexpectedly chosen as a compromise candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 1940, preventing the nomination of an isolationist candidate, and thus guaranteeing that, whoever won the general election, the Republican nominee or a re-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that President would be willing and prepared to take on the Nazi threat. It was the closest of FDR's 4 runs for President, and he and Willkie built a bipartisan alliance afterward. Willkie spent much of 1941 speaking about the need to stand up to the Nazis, and much of 1942 and 1943 raising money for the war effort. Unfortunately, as the 1944 campaign got underway, while Republicans engaged in a whispering campaign that FDR was dying, both Willkie and his 1940 running mate, Senator Charles McNary of Oregon, died before that election, so FDR outlived both of them -- barely. Dishonorable Mention: February ...