Dwight D. Eisenhower was an American politician and military leader who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961.

His decision to attend West Point saddened his mother, who felt that warfare was "rather wicked", but she did not overrule his decision.

According to Eisenhower, not making the baseball team at West Point was one of the greatest disappointments of his life. He did make the varsity football team, however, and was a starter as running back and linebacker in 1912, when he tackled future NFL legend Jim Thorpe of the Carlisle Indians. Eisenhower suffered a torn knee while being tackled in the next game, which was the last he played.

During World War II, he became a five-star general in the Army and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942-43 and the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944-45 from the Western Front.

A fictitious First U.S. Army Group was invented, supposedly located in Kent and Sussex under the command of Lieutenant General George S. Patton. The Allies constructed dummy tanks, trucks, and landing craft, and positioned them near the coast. Several military units, including II Canadian Corps and 2nd Canadian Division, moved into the area to bolster the illusion that a large force was gathering there. As well as the broadcast of fake radio-traffic, genuine radio messages from 21st Army Group were first routed to Kent via landline and then broadcast, to give the Germans the impression that most of the Allied troops were stationed there.

In 1945, President Truman began nudging Eisenhower toward running for president, and two years later, promised to be his running mate on the Democratic ticket in the 1948 election. Eisenhower refused, claiming he had no ambition for the job, but by the 1952 election, both parties were begging him to be their candidate. The public didn't know Eisenhower's party affiliation until he declared himself a Republican in 1951, at which time the "Draft Eisenhower" efforts intensified on the GOP side.

Eisenhower defeated Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson in a landslide, with an electoral margin of 442 to 89, marking the first Republican return to the White House in 20 years.

After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, which led to the Space Race. He later soured on the space program, however, and was quoted as saying, "Anyone who would spend $40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts."

Eisenhower believed that if the communists were allowed to prevail in Vietnam, this would cause a succession of countries to fall to communism, from Laos through Malaysia and Indonesia ultimately to India. Likewise, the fall of Guatemala would end with the fall of neighboring Mexico. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world.

Eisenhower was the first to president to harness the pop culture power of the small screen. Throughout his eight years in office, Eisenhower held televised press conferences and regularly made appearances on programs like The Ed Sullivan Show. He even shared face-time with the comedy duo Abbott and Costello while kicking off Armed Forces Week in 1955. To recognize his contributions to television news, Eisenhower was awarded an Emmy.