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Everett McKinley Dirksen was born in Pekin, Illinois, in 1896. He fought in World War I, participated in a series of business ventures upon his return from Europe, and won a place on the Pekin City Council in 1926. After losing his first bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1930, Dirksen won the first of eight consecutive elections to Congress as a Republican in 1932. Forced by illness to retire from the House in 1948, Dirksen successfully challenged the incumbent Democratic senator from Illinois in 1950 to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. Dirksen’s Republican colleagues elected him minority leader of the Senate in 1959, a post he held until his death on September 7, 1969.