Woodrow Wilson in the context of "Good Neighbor Policy"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, as well as the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to U.S. involvement in World War II. A member of the Democratic Party, Roosevelt previously served in the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913, the assistant secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1920, and as the 44th governor of New York from 1929 to 1932.

Born into the prominent Delano and Roosevelt families in Hyde Park, New York, Roosevelt graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts. He entered Columbia Law School in 1904, but dropped out in 1907 after passing the New York bar examination. Roosevelt was elected to the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913 before serving as the assistant secretary of the Navy under President Wilson during World War I. Roosevelt was James M. Cox's running mate on the Democratic ticket in the 1920 presidential election, which Cox lost to Republican nominee Warren G. Harding. In 1921, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness that permanently paralyzed his legs. However, he returned to the public office upon being elected governor of New York in 1928, partly through the encouragement of his wife Eleanor, and during his tenure as governor of New York, he promoted programs to combat the Great Depression. After receiving the Democratic nomination, Roosevelt defeated President Herbert Hoover in a landside victory in the 1932 presidential election.

Idealism in the foreign policy context holds that a nation-state should make its internal political philosophy the goal of its conduct and rhetoric in international affairs. For example, an idealist might believe that ending poverty at home should be coupled with tackling poverty abroad. Both within and outside of the United States, American president Woodrow Wilson is widely considered an early advocate of idealism and codifier of its practical meaning; specific actions cited include the issuing of the famous Fourteen Points.

Wilson's idealism was a precursor to liberal international relations theory, the particular set of viewpoints arising amongst the so-called "institution builders" after World War II. Organizations that came about as a direct result of the war's outcome include the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations (UN) among others.

The League of Nations (LN or LoN; French: Société des Nations [sɔsjete de nɑsjɔ̃], SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organisation ceased operations on 18 April 1946 when many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations (UN) which was created in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The League's primary goals were stated in its eponymous Covenant. They included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Its other concerns included labour conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, the arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe. The Covenant of the League of Nations was signed on 28 June 1919 as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, and it became effective with the rest of the Treaty on 10 January 1920. Australia was granted the right to participate as an autonomous member nation, marking the start of Australian independence on the global stage. The first meeting of the Council of the League took place on 16 January 1920, and the first meeting of the Assembly of the League took place on 15 November 1920. In 1919, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as the leading architect of the League. Despite this, he was ultimately unsuccessful in getting his country to join it.

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 2, 1920. The Republican ticket of senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio and governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts defeated the Democratic ticket of governor James M. Cox of Ohio and assistant secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York. It was the first election held after the end of the First World War, and the first election after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment gave nationwide suffrage to women.

Incumbent president Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat who had served since 1913, privately hoped for a third term despite severe physical and mental disabilities from a stroke, but he had very little support. Former president Theodore Roosevelt had been the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, but he died in 1919 without leaving an obvious heir to his progressive legacy. The major parties turned to little-known dark horse candidates from the state of Ohio, a populous swing state with many electoral votes. Cox won on the 44th ballot at the 1920 Democratic National Convention, defeating William Gibbs McAdoo (Wilson's son-in-law), A. Mitchell Palmer, and several other candidates. Harding emerged as a compromise candidate between the conservative and progressive wings of the Republican party, and he clinched his nomination on the tenth ballot at the 1920 Republican National Convention.

The Democratic Party is a liberal political party in the United States. Sitting on the center to center-left of the political spectrum, it is the world's oldest active political party, having been founded in 1828. Its main rival is the conservative Republican Party, and since the 1850s both have dominated American politics.

It initially supported Jacksonian democracy, agrarianism, and geographical expansionism, while opposing a national bank and high tariffs. Democrats won six of the eight presidential elections from 1828 to 1856, losing twice to the Whigs. In 1860, the party split into Northern and Southern factions over slavery. The party remained dominated by agrarian interests, contrasting with Republican support for the big business of the Gilded Age. Democratic candidates won the presidency only twice between 1860 and 1908 though they won the popular vote two more times in that period. During the Progressive Era, some factions of the party supported progressive reforms, with Woodrow Wilson being elected president in 1912 and 1916.

Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and was the director of the U.S. Food Administration, followed by post-war relief of Europe. As a member of the Republican Party, he served as the third United States secretary of commerce from 1921 to 1928 before being elected president in 1928. His presidency was dominated by the Great Depression, and his policies and methods to combat it were seen as lackluster. Amid his unpopularity, he decisively lost reelection to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

Born to a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa, Hoover grew up in Oregon. He was one of the first graduates of the new Stanford University in 1895. Hoover took a position with a London-based mining company working in Australia and China. He rapidly became a wealthy mining engineer. In 1914, the outbreak of World War I, he organized and headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, an international relief organization that provided food to occupied Belgium. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to lead the Food Administration. He became famous as his country's "food dictator". After the war, Hoover led the American Relief Administration, which provided food to the starving millions in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Russia. His wartime service made him a favorite of many progressives, and he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the 1920 United States presidential election.

Cabiria is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War (218–202 BC). It follows the story of an abducted little girl, Cabiria, and features an eruption of Mount Etna, religious rituals in Carthage, the alpine trek of Hannibal, Archimedes' defeat of the Roman fleet at the Siege of Syracuse and Scipio maneuvering in North Africa. Apart from being a classic on its own terms, the film is also notable for being the first film in which the long-running film character Maciste makes his debut. According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the epic movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Among those was the extensive use of a moving camera, thus freeing the feature-length narrative film from "static gaze".

The historical background and characters in the story are taken from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita (written ca. 27–25 BC). In addition, the script of Cabiria was partially based on Gustave Flaubert's 1862 novel Salammbô and Emilio Salgari's 1908 novel Cartagine in fiamme (Carthage in Flames). It was the first film shown at the White House, having been viewed on the South Lawn, by the President, First Lady, Vice President, his wife, members of the Cabinet and their wives, due to the summer heat in June 1914.

James Middleton Cox (March 31, 1870 – July 15, 1957) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 46th and 48th governor of Ohio, and a two-term U.S. Representative from Ohio. As the Democratic nominee for President of the United States at the 1920 presidential election, he lost in a landslide to fellow Ohioan Warren G. Harding. Cox's running mate was future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. He founded the chain of newspapers that continues today as Cox Enterprises, a media conglomerate.

Born and raised in Ohio, Cox began his career as a newspaper copy reader before becoming an assistant to Congressman Paul J. Sorg. As owner of the Dayton Daily News, Cox introduced several innovations and crusaded against the local Republican Party boss. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1909 to 1913 before being elected as Governor of Ohio. As governor, Cox introduced a series of progressive reforms and supported Woodrow Wilson's handling of World War I and its aftermath.

The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. However, his main Allied colleagues (Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy) were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism.

The United States had joined the Triple Entente in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917. Its entry into the war had in part been due to Germany's resumption of submarine warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain and also the interception of the Zimmermann telegram. However, Wilson wanted to avoid the United States' involvement in the long-standing European tensions between the great powers; if America was going to fight, he wanted to try to separate that participation in the war from nationalistic disputes or ambitions. The need for moral aims was made more important when, after the fall of the Russian government, the Bolsheviks disclosed secret treaties made between the Allies. Wilson's speech also responded to Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace of November 1917, immediately after the October Revolution in 1917.