Video: 'Inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953 [SOUND!]'

(Tuesday, January 20, 1953, 12:32 p.m. EST) — Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower of New York took the oath of office today as the 34th president of the United States at the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Video: 'President Eisenhower 1953 Inaugural Address'

Eisenhower, a Republican, succeeded President Harry S. Truman, who had declined to seek a third term, ending a 20-year era of Democratic rule.

Video: 'Eisenhower President Aka Ike Inauguration (1953)'

Just nine minutes earlier, at 12:23 p.m. EST, former U.S. Senator Richard Milhous Nixon of California was sworn in as the 36th vice president of the United States. Nixon succeeded Vice President Alben Barkley, who had unsuccessfully sought the 1952 Democratic presidential nomination.

Video: '1953 Eisenhower Inaugural Parade Cowboy Montie Montana'

The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket had defeated the Democratic ticket of Adlai Stevenson and John J. Sparkman in the 1952 United States presidential election by 442 to 89 votes in the Electoral College.

In a brief inaugural address, the new Chief Executive dedicated himself to the pursuit of peace, and told the world that the United States faces this “time of tempest” not “with dread and confusion,” but “with confidence and conviction.”

Video: Eisenhower takes oath of office (at 5:21)

Following the inauguration, former President Truman went to Union Station for the train ride home to Independence, Missouri.

Eisenhower then rode westward in a glittering Inaugural parade to the acclaim of a crowd that police estimated at 750,000 persons, who jammed the historic route between the capitol and the White House.