History
The IADC, located on Fort Lesley J. McNair, was formally opened on 9 October 1962 when the Honorable Dean Rusk, then Secretary of State of the United States, presented the building and furnishings donated by the United States Government. Doctor Jose A. Mora, then Secretary General of the Organization of American States, was the principal speaker at the opening ceremony. The first class, with 29 students representing 15 American republics, received their diplomas on 20 March 1963 with then Vice President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, giving the graduation address and awarding diplomas.
Since its opening more than 2,000 students have graduated from the IADC, of which many have gone on to become presidents, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, or general officers for their respective nations. In January 2006, Class 37 graduate Michelle Bachelet was elected president of Chile, becoming the second IADC graduate to be elected to presidential office, after Lucio Gutiérrez of Ecuador.
Read more about this topic: Inter-American Defense College
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)