Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, November 19, 19, 19, 19, 19, say that three times fast.

November 19, 19, 19, 19, the U.S. Senate for the first time in its history

rejects a peace treaty, the treaty of Versailles. The treaty was the most important

of the peace treaties that brought an end to World War I. It was a treaty that President

Woodrow Wilson backed had been negotiating along with the nations of Europe for months and

months as those negotiations concluded Wilson declared that quote at last the

world knows America as the savior of the world but when he brought it home to the US Senate for

ratification, things got complicated and ultimately the Republican-led Senate rejected

the treaty.

So here to discuss the rejection of Versailles is as

always Nicole Hammer of Columbia. Hello Nicky. Hello Jody. And our special

guest for this episode, Christopher McKnight Nichols director of the Center for Humanities

and a professor of history at Oregon State University Chris thank you for for

joining us hey hi nice to be on with you yeah you know your stuff about this so tell

us what were the

objections state side to the treaty? Yeah, so it became a pitched battle in the

Senate in November 1919 and all throughout really the summer into the fall

over the Treaty of Versailles and especially the League of Nations.

That was the sticking point. And within debates about the League of Nations,

there were roughly three broad kind of themes

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