National D-Day Museum
Main Entrance
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| Established | June 6, 2000 |
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| Location | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Visitors | 483,000 (2014) |
| Website | www |
The National WWII Museum, formerly known as the D-Day Museum, is a military history museum located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, on Andrew Higgins Drive between Camp Street and Magazine Street. The museum focuses on the contribution made by the United States to Allied victory in World War II. Founded in 2000, it was later designated by the U.S. Congress as America's official National World War II Museum in 2003. The Museum maintains an affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution. The mission statement of the Museum emphasizes the American experience in World War II.
The museum opened on June 6, 2000, the 56th anniversary of D-Day, and has since undertaken a large-scale expansion project, which is still ongoing. In addition to the original building, known as the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion, the museum has since opened the Solomon Victory Theater, the John E. Kushner Restoration Pavilion, the US Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center, and the Campaigns of Courage pavilion. There are further plans to construct what will be called the Liberation Pavilion. In 2016, the Museum was ranked by TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Awards as the #4 Museum in the United States and #11 in the World.
Within the large atrium of the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion several aircraft are on display, including a Supermarine Spitfire and a Douglas C-47 Skytrain suspended from the ceiling. A LCVP, or "Higgins boat", is also usually on display in this pavilion. The exhibits in this pavilion focus on the amphibious landings of the war, in both the European and Pacific theaters of war. Topics covered include the Allied strategy of island hopping, culminating with nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The Louisiana Memorial Pavilion is also home to rotating temporary exhibits, as well as the immersive and interactive Union Pacific Train Car (part of the larger "Dog Tag Experience" interactive), which opened in 2013.
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