John Ericsson, a Swedish inventor, has a beautiful monument just south of the Lincoln Memorial on the median near the intersection of Ohio Drive SW and Independence Avenue SW. The beautiful pink granite statue was placed on its current location in 1927, at a cost of $60,000. $35,000 of that was federal funds, as voted in by the 1916 Congress, and the other $25,000 was raised through Swedish-American funds.
So, why was Ericsson so important? He invented the screw propellor for ships, allowing vessels to propel themselves through the water efficiently using a steam-driven engine. His dual-propeller design is the father of the propulsion system for just about every naval ship in the water today.