Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was born October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1915, he carved out a distinguished military career that included commanding the Allied Forces that landed in North Africa, serving as supreme commander of the troops invading France on D-Day, and serving as the first supreme commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces. For a brief period, he also was president of Columbia University.
Once Eisenhower retired from active service, he announced his candidacy for president. He won an impressive victory and took the oath of office on January 20, 1953. The next day he wrote: "My first day at the President's Desk. Plenty of worries and difficult problems. But such has been my portion for a long time - the result is that this just seems (today) like a continuation of all I've been doing since July '41' even before that".
Eisenhower went on to serve two terms in office. Highlights of his presidency include:
- Negotiating an armistice in the Korean War.
- Participating in the Geneva Conference on Indochina, which resulted in the portioning of Vietnam.
- Launching the first atomic submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus.
- Establishing the President's Council on Youth Fitness, the precursor of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
- Establishing the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
- Signing legislation creating the Interstate Highway program.
- Sending federal troops to enforce the court-ordered integration of Little Rock Central High School.
- Signing the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.
- Signing legislation in 1958 creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
- Signing legislation admitting Alaska and Hawaii into the Union as the 49th and 50th states, respectively.
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