March 23, 2011

Arkansas-born General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander, signed the Japanese surrender document on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, thus ending World War II. MacArthur, who is seated at the signature table, was born in the Little Rock Barracks on January 26, 1880, and baptized at Christ Episcopal Church. Though he returned to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1952 and acknowledged his birth site, the war hero had little other contact with his native state.