On this day in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for the Thomas Jefferson Memorial beside Washington, D.C.’s Tidal Basin. Modeled by architect John Russell Pope after the ancient Pantheon that Jefferson admired, the memorial was dedicated in 1943, two hundred years after Jefferson’s birth.

A 19-foot bronze statue of Jefferson, created by sculptor Rudulph Evans, stands at the heart of the rotunda, facing toward the White House. Around the interior are selected inscriptions from Jefferson’s writings, including “Almighty God hath created the mind free.”

Each spring, hundreds of cherry trees, gifts from Japan in 1912, frame the memorial in soft blossom. Evening lighting reveals another famous line beneath the dome: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

A statesman of restless curiosity, a President, architect, farmer, inventor, and writer, Jefferson continues to challenge us to think deeply about freedom and responsibility, about ideals tested in the bright air of history and in the quiet of our own conscience.