Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 10, 2016
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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. (Full article...)