Who is Dwight Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 - March 28, 1969) was the thirty-fourth President of the United States from 1953 until 1961 and a five-star general in the United States Army. During the Second World War, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944-45. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.

As President, he oversaw the cease-fire of the Korean War, kept up the pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, made nuclear weapons a higher defense priority, launched the Space Race, enlarged the Social Security program, and began the Interstate Highway System. Eisenhower also was highly involved in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the overthrow of democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mossadegh and replacing him with the pro-Western Shah. He has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.

Early Life & Family
Eisenhower was born David Dwight Eisenhower in Denison, Texas, the first president born in that state. He was the third of seven sons born to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover. The house in which he was born has been preserved as Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site and is operated by the Texas Historical Commission. He was named David Dwight and was called Dwight; he reversed the order of his given names when he entered West Point, which is also where he received his nickname, "Ike". Eisenhower's paternal ancestors can be traced back to Hans Nicolas Eisenhauer, whose surname was German for "iron worker." Hans Eisenhauer and his family emigrated from Karlsbrunn (Saarland), Germany to Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1741. Descendants made their way west. Eisenhower's family settled in Abilene, Kansas in 1892. His father David Eisenhower was a college-educated engineer. Eisenhower graduated from Abilene High School in 1909.

Eisenhower married Mamie Geneva Doud (1896-1979) of Denver, Colorado on July 1, 1916. The couple had two sons. Doud Dwight Eisenhower was born September 24, 1917, and died of scarlet fever on January 2, 1921, at the age of three. Their second son, John Sheldon David Doud Eisenhower, was born the following year on August 3, 1922; John served in the United States Army (retiring as a brigadier general from the Army reserve), became an author, and served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium from 1969 to 1971. John, coincidentally, graduated from West Point on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and was married to Barbara Jean Thompson in a June wedding in 1947. John and Barbara had four children: Dwight David II, Barbara Ann, Susan Elaine and Mary Jean. John's son, David, after whom Camp David is named, married Richard Nixon's daughter Julie in 1968. [read the rest of the Wikipedia article]