On this day in 1890, Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower was born in Denison, TX. He would be the first President of the United States to be born in Texas. Ike's family moved to Abilene Kansas when he was 2, and graduated from Abilene High in 1909. Ike delayed going to College for 2 years so he could work and pay for his brothers' tuition. In 1911 he applied to the U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Military Academy at West Point and won the entrance-exam competition, however since he had taken 2 years off to pay for his brother college he has too old for the Naval Academy, so he ended up at West Point. At West Point, Ike was a less than stellar student, focusing on athletics until a knee injury ended his football career.
During Eisenhower's military career he served and learned from some of the best generals in US History including John J. Pershing, Douglas McArthur, and George Marshall. These lessons would serve him well in 1942 when he assumed the Supreme Allied Command in North Africa, and later as Supreme Allied Commander for the entire European theatre until the end of the war in Europe.
After the war and leaving the military, Eisenhower became the President of Columbia Univerity in New York City. Initially refusing calls to run for the Presidency, believing generals should stay out of politics, Eisenhower decided to run as a Republican in 1952. His campaign slogan "I Like Ike" would become one of the most iconic of all time. Eisenhower won the election in 1952 with a landslide victory over Adlai Stevenson II, 442 electoral votes to 89. He won re-election in, again in a landslide and again against Adlai Stevenson II 457 electoral votes to 73.
Eisenhower's presidential legacy is remembered for 3 things. A robust foreign policy of containment against the spread of communism, the creation of the US Space Program and NASA, and the creation of the Interstate Highway System. All three as part of his national defense mindset and stopping the spread of communism.
