BRIAN THOMAS

On January 18, 1919, in Paris, France, some of the most
powerful people in the world meet to begin the long,
complicated negotiations that would officially mark the
end of the First World War.

Dignitaries gathering in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, France, to sign the Treaty of Versailles.

The Council of Four (Also known as the ‘Big Four’) at the
Paris Peace Conference. President Woodrow Wilson is
at the far right. 

From left: British Prime Minister Lloyd George, Italian
Council President Vittorio Orlando, French Council
President Georges Clemenceau and President
Woodrow Wilson attending the opening day of
the Conference for Peace in Paris.

The day after British Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s
arrival in Paris, he meets with representatives from the other
Big Four nations—Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau of
France and Vittorio Orlando of Italy and President Woodrow
Wilson of the United States—at the French Foreign Ministry
on the Quai d’Orsay, for the first of what will be more than
100 meetings.

Clemenceau (left) and President Wilson (center).

BRIAN THOMAS

Charles Augustus Lindbergh
(February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974)

From left, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President
Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin sit on the patio
of Livadia Palace.

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference, was held
February 4–11, 1945 and convened in the Livadia Palace. It was the major
World War II conference. It was the second conference of the “Big Three”
Allied leaders–U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin–and the war had
progressed mightily since their last meeting, which had taken place in
Tehran in late 1943.