The U.S. Dime

Updated February 23, 2017 | Factmonster Staff

The Question:

Whose face is on the U.S. dime?

The Answer:

That's the "glasses-less" profile of Franklin D. Roosevelt, our 32nd president. Roosevelt, who was a polio vicitm, founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to find a vaccine for polio. People were encouraged to send dimes for the foundation to the White House, in what comedian Eddie Cantor called the "March of Dimes."

The death of Roosevelt in April 1945 brought many requests to the Treasury Department to honor him on a coin. Appropriately, the dime was selected. The dime bearing his portrait was released on his following birthday, Jan. 30, 1946.

-The Fact Monster

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