Woodrow Wilson Memorial - Geneva, Switzerland
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N 46° 12.892 E 006° 09.098
32T E 280303 N 5121865
A memorial to US President Woodrow Wilson, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 for his part in setting up the League of Nations
Waymark Code: WM76C3
Location: Genève, Switzerland
Date Posted: 09/08/2009
Views: 17
Woodrow Wilson was born December 28, 1856, Staunton, Virginia, U.S. and died February 3, 1924, Washington, D.C.
Wilson was 28th president of the United States (1913–21), an American scholar and statesman best remembered for his legislative accomplishments and his high-minded idealism. Wilson led his country into World War I and became the creator and leading advocate of the League of Nations, for which he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Peace. During his second term the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed and ratified. He suffered a paralytic stroke while seeking American public support for the Treaty of Versailles (October 1919), and his incapacity, which lasted for the rest of his term of office, caused the worst crisis of presidential disability in American history.
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the memorial is on the front wall of Palais Wilson, on the banks of Lake Geneva. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has its headquarters in the historic Palais Wilson building in Geneva, Switzerland. The five-storey and 225-room building by Lake Leman was originally constructed in 1873-75 as Hôtel National. When Switzerland joined the then newly-created League of Nations in 1920, the premises became the world body's headquarters. In 1924, the building was renamed Palais Wilson after the death of US President Woodrow Wilson and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who played an important role in the establishment of the League of Nations during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference after World War I.
In 1937, the League of Nations moved to the purpose-built Palais des Nations on a far larger piece of land overlooking lakeside Geneva. In the following decades, Palais Wilson became the office of various government departments and, later returned to being a hotel. By the late 1980s, the building had fallen into serious disrepair. Fires in 1985 and 1987 severely damaged parts of the building. The Swiss authorities and the private Société des Hôtels Wilson restored and renovated the building extensively from 1993 to 1998. After the renovations were completed, Palais Wilson was made available at a preferential rent to become OHCHR's Headquarters. Additional facilities at Motta Avenue , close to Palais des Nations -- the United Nations European Headquarters in Geneva , also house part of OHCHR.