Sitting as a western bookend of the National Mall and the first sight a driver will see while crossing the Memorial Bridge, the Lincoln Memorial may be one of the city’s most iconic monuments. Today, it celebrates its 90th birthday.

It was on this day in 1922 that Chief Justice William H. Taft dedicated the memorial and presented it to President Warren G. Harding. (Watch a video of the dedication here.) Construction had started in early 1914, and much like the Eisenhower Memorial being debated today, there was plenty of disagreement over design and location. Some thought the Greek temple in which Lincoln is housed was too ostentatious; a humble log cabin was proposed as an alternative. Additionally, the site wasn’t much to look at—it was mostly swampy ground at the time—and other locations were floated, including one by Union Station.

The Lincoln Memorial has also served as the backdrop—literally and figuratively—for the civil rights struggle. After African-American contralto Marian Anderson was denied the opportunity to perform at Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1939, she took Eleanor Roosevelt up on the chance to perform instead at the memorial—to a crowd of 70,000. On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the memorial; an inscription was added in 2003 to mark the very place he stood while speaking.

Some six million people visit the memorial every year.