September 17, 2020: The Eisenhower Memorial Is Dedicated

September 17, 2020: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. It is located on Independence Avenue, between 4th and 6th Streets Southwest, between the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum and the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education.

"Ike" became only the 5th President to receive a memorial in the District of Columbia, following George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Other Presidents have statues, Theodore Roosevelt has an island in the middle of the Potomac River, John F. Kennedy has the Center for the Performing Arts on the Washington bank of the Potomac, Lyndon Johnson has a Memorial Grove on the Virginia bank, and other Presidents have had buildings in D.C. named for them.

But the Memorial is less a tribute to Eisenhower's Presidency (1953-1961) than it is to his role as the commanding General of World War II, including his command of the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. It shows Ike in uniform, talking to 6 soldiers -- a re-creation of this famous photograph -- and includes this quote of his, inscribed in the marble above: "The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory!"

He had 4 stars at the time. He would later receive a 5th star.

 

Congress created a commission to design and build a memorial to him in 1999, but it took years to decide on a design. Ike himself once suggested that he didn't need a memorial; and that, if they insisted, it be no bigger than his desk. He was posthumously overruled.

The dedication ceremony was originally set for May 8, 2020, the 75th Anniversary of V-E Day. The COVID pandemic pushed it back to September 17, 2020.

Eisenhower's Presidential Library is in his hometown of Abilene, Kansas, about 150 miles west of Kansas City, and 90 miles north of Wichita. It opened on May 1, 1962. His left profile appeared on the $1.00 coin from 1971 to 1978. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, CVN-69, nicknamed the Mighty Ike, has been in service since 1975. There are high schools named after him in the States of California, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Interstate 290 in Chicago and its suburbs is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway, or "The Ike." (The Cook County section of Interstate 55 is named the Adlai E. Stevenson Expressway, for Ike's 1952 and 1956 opponent.) Essex County Route 509 in northern New Jersey is the Eisenhower Parkway.

Eisenhower was the 1st President born in Texas, and remains the only one to represent Kansas in politics.

Harry Carey Jr. played Ike in The Long Gray Line in 1955, Henry Grace in The Longest Day in 1962, James Flavin played Ike in Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident. All in 1979, Robert Duvall starred in Ike, Andrew Duggan in Backstairs at the White House, and Richard Dysart in Churchill and the Generals.

Robert Beer played him twice, in The Right Stuff in 1983 and My Science Project in 1985. Keene Curtis played him in IQ, a film about Albert Einstein, in 1994. Tom Selleck, almost unrecognizable with his head and mustache shaved, starred in Ike: Countdown to D-Day in 2004. Even more improbably, Robin Williams played him in The Butler in 2013.

William P. Rogers was the last surviving member of Eisenhower's Cabinet, serving as Attorney General for Ike's 2nd term. He was also Secretary of State for President Richard Nixon's 1st term. He lived until 2001.

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September 17, 2020 was a Thursday. There was 1 NFL game played that day, a Battle of Ohio: The Cleveland Browns beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 35-30 at Cleveland Browns Stadium (then named FirstEnergy Stadium).

Basketball and hockey were out of season. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 10-7 at Yankee Stadium. Masahiro Tanaka was supported by home runs from Brett Gardner, DJ LeMahieu, Luke Voit, Giancarlo Stanton, Gleyber Torres and Gary Sánchez -- pretty much everybody but Aaron Judge, who was injured and unable to play.

* The New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-6 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

* The Tampa Bay Rays swept the Baltimore Orioles in one of those COVID-aided 7-innings-per-game doubleheaders at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, 10-6 and 3-1.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Miami Marlins, 5-3 at LoanDepot Park in Miami.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-1 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 10-3 at Comerica Park in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-3 at Guaranteed Rate Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Houston Astros beat their arch-rivals, the Texas Rangers, 2-1 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies, 9-3 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 7-3 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Seattle Mariners, 6-4 at Oracle Park in San Francisco.

* And the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs, the Cincinnati Reds, the Kansas City Royals, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Oakland Athletics, the San Diego Padres and the Washington Nationals were not scheduled.