Dwight David Eisenhower (nicknamed “Ike”; 1890–1969) was the 34th President of the United States, serving two terms from 1953 to 1961. Born in Denison, Texas, and raised in Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower attended West Point and served a long and distinguished career in the US Army. During World War II, he was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. After the war, he served as President Harry S. Truman’s Chief of Staff of the Army until 1948, and then became the first Supreme Allied Commander, Europe for NATO in 1951. He assumed the Office of the Presidency on January 20, 1953. During his time as president, he brought the Korean War to a close and continued America’s anticommunist policies as part of the Cold War with the USSR. On the domestic front, he oversaw the formation of the Interstate Highway System and the launch of NASA, and he led efforts to combat racial discrimination, including enforcing desegregation in the Armed Forces and sending federal troops to Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas to enforce desegregation in the public school system under the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision.