He signed the first United States copyright law, protecting the copyrights of authors. He also signed the first Thanksgiving proclamation, making November 26 a national day of Thanksgiving for the end of the war for American independence and the successful ratification of the Constitution. In his second term, Washington issued the proclamation of neutrality to avoid entering the war between Great Britain and France.
His meddling caused a stir between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, widening the rift between parties and making consensus-building more difficult. It helped the U. Internationally, it caused a stir among the French, who believed it violated previous treaties between the United States and France.
The Treaty of Tripoli, signed the following year, gave American ships access to Mediterranean shipping lanes in exchange for a yearly tribute to the Pasha of Tripoli.
In , after two terms as president and declining to serve a third term, Washington finally retired. The address is still read each February in the U. Washington returned to Mount Vernon and devoted his attentions to making the plantation as productive as it had been before he became president.
More than four decades of public service had aged him, but he was still a commanding figure. In December , he caught a cold after inspecting his properties in the rain.
The cold developed into a throat infection and Washington died on the night of December 14, at the age of He was entombed at Mount Vernon, which in was designated a national historic landmark. Washington left one of the most enduring legacies of any American in history.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Mount Vernon is the former plantation estate and burial location of George Washington, the American Revolutionary War general and the first President of the United States, his wife Martha and 20 other Washington family members. The current estate—which is open to George Washington Carver was an agricultural scientist and inventor who developed hundreds of products using peanuts though not peanut butter, as is often claimed , sweet potatoes and soybeans.
Born into slavery a year before it was outlawed, Carver left home at a young age to Granted statehood in , Washington was named in honor of George Washington; it is the only U. George W. Bush, the 41st U. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard George Herbert Walker Bush , served as the 41st U. He also was a two-term U. Bush, a World War II naval aviator and Texas oil industry executive, began his political career in the Washington had only a grade-school education. That event cut young George off from the opportunity to be educated abroad in England, a privilege that had been afforded to his older Washington, D.
In , Washington returned to duty on another expedition to capture Fort Duquesne. A friendly-fire incident took place, killing 14 and wounding 26 of Washington's men. However, the British were able to score a major victory, capturing Fort Duquesne and control of the Ohio Valley. Washington retired from his Virginia regiment in December His experience during the war was generally frustrating, with key decisions made slowly, poor support from the colonial legislature and poorly trained recruits.
Washington applied for a commission with the British army but was turned down. In , he resigned his commission and returned to Mount Vernon disillusioned. The same year, he entered politics and was elected to Virginia's House of Burgesses.
A month after leaving the army, Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, a widow, who was only a few months older than he. Martha brought to the marriage a considerable fortune: an 18,acre estate, from which Washington personally acquired 6, acres.
With this and land he was granted for his military service, Washington became one of the more wealthy landowners in Virginia. The marriage also brought Martha's two young children, John Jacky and Martha Patsy , ages six and four, respectively. Washington lavished great affection on both of them, and was heartbroken when Patsy died just before the Revolution.
Jacky died during the Revolution, and Washington adopted two of his children. During his retirement from the Virginia militia until the start of the Revolution, Washington devoted himself to the care and development of his land holdings, attending the rotation of crops, managing livestock and keeping up with the latest scientific advances.
By the s, Washington kept over enslaved people at Mount Vernon. He was said to dislike the institution of slavery , but accepted the fact that it was legal. Washington, in his will, made his displeasure with slavery known, as he ordered that all his enslaved people be granted their freedom upon the death of his wife Martha.
Washington loved the landed gentry's life of horseback riding, fox hunts, fishing and cotillions. He worked six days a week, often taking off his coat and performing manual labor with his workers. He was an innovative and responsible landowner, breeding cattle and horses and tending to his fruit orchards. Much has been made of the fact that Washington used false teeth or dentures for most of his adult life. Indeed, Washington's correspondence to friends and family makes frequent references to aching teeth, inflamed gums and various dental woes.
Washington had one tooth pulled when he was just 24 years old, and by the time of his inauguration in he had just one natural tooth left. But his false teeth weren't made of wood, as some legends suggest. Instead, Washington's false teeth were fashioned from human teeth — including teeth from enslaved people and his own pulled teeth — ivory, animal teeth and assorted metals. Washington's dental problems, according to some historians, probably impacted the shape of his face and may have contributed to his quiet, somber demeanor: During the Constitutional Convention, Washington addressed the gathered dignitaries only once.
Though the British Proclamation Act of — prohibiting settlement beyond the Alleghenies — irritated Washington and he opposed the Stamp Act of , he did not take a leading role in the growing colonial resistance against the British until the widespread protest of the Townshend Acts in His letters of this period indicate he was totally opposed to the colonies declaring independence.
However, by , he wasn't opposed to resisting what he believed were fundamental violations by the Crown of the rights of Englishmen. In , Washington introduced a resolution to the House of Burgesses calling for Virginia to boycott British goods until the Acts were repealed. After the passage of the Coercive Acts in , Washington chaired a meeting in which the Fairfax Resolves were adopted, calling for the convening of the Continental Congress and the use of armed resistance as a last resort.
He was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in March After the battles of Lexington and Concord in April , the political dispute between Great Britain and her North American colonies escalated into an armed conflict. In May, Washington traveled to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia dressed in a military uniform, indicating that he was prepared for war. As was his custom, he did not seek out the office of commander, but he faced no serious competition.
Washington was the best choice for a number of reasons: he had the prestige, military experience and charisma for the job and he had been advising Congress for months.
Another factor was political: The Revolution had started in New England and at the time, they were the only colonies that had directly felt the brunt of British tyranny.
Virginia was the largest British colony and New England needed Southern colonial support. Political considerations and force of personality aside, Washington was not necessarily qualified to wage war on the world's most powerful nation.
Washington's training and experience were primarily in frontier warfare involving small numbers of soldiers. He wasn't trained in the open-field style of battle practiced by the commanding British generals. He also had no practical experience maneuvering large formations of infantry, commanding cavalry or artillery, or maintaining the flow of supplies for thousands of men in the field.
But he was courageous and determined and smart enough to keep one step ahead of the enemy. Washington and his small army did taste victory early in March by placing artillery above Boston, on Dorchester Heights, forcing the British to withdraw.
Washington then moved his troops into New York City. But in June, a new British commander, Sir William Howe , arrived in the Colonies with the largest expeditionary force Britain had ever deployed to date.
In August , the British army launched an attack and quickly took New York City in the largest battle of the war. Washington's army was routed and suffered the surrender of 2, men. He ordered the remains of his army to retreat into Pennsylvania across the Delaware River. Confident the war would be over in a few months, General Howe wintered his troops at Trenton and Princeton, leaving Washington free to attack at the time and place of his choosing. On Christmas night, , Washington and his men returned across the Delaware River and attacked unsuspecting Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, forcing their surrender.
A few days later, evading a force that had been sent to destroy his army, Washington attacked the British again, this time at Princeton, dealing them a humiliating loss. General Howe's strategy was to capture colonial cities and stop the rebellion at key economic and political centers.
He never abandoned the belief that once the Americans were deprived of their major cities, the rebellion would wither. In the summer of , he mounted an offensive against Philadelphia. Washington moved in his army to defend the city but was defeated at the Battle of Brandywine. Philadelphia fell two weeks later.
In the late summer of , the British army sent a major force, under the command of John Burgoyne, south from Quebec to Saratoga, New York, to split the rebellion between New England and the southern colonies.
Without support from Howe, who couldn't reach him in time, Burgoyne was forced to surrender his entire 6, man army. The victory was a major turning point in the war as it encouraged France to openly ally itself with the American cause for independence.
Through all of this, Washington discovered an important lesson: The political nature of war was just as important as the military one. Washington began to understand that military victories were as important as keeping the resistance alive. Americans began to believe that they could meet their objective of independence without defeating the British army. Meanwhile, British General Howe clung to the strategy of capturing colonial cities in hopes of smothering the rebellion. Howe didn't realize that capturing cities like Philadelphia and New York would not unseat colonial power.
The Congress would just pack up and meet elsewhere. The 11,man force went into winter quarters and over the next six months suffered thousands of deaths, mostly from disease. But the army emerged from the winter still intact and in relatively good order. Realizing their strategy of capturing colonial cities had failed, the British command replaced General Howe with Sir Henry Clinton.
Washington and his men delivered several quick blows to the moving army, attacking the British flank near Monmouth Courthouse. Though a tactical standoff, the encounter proved Washington's army capable of open field battle. For the remainder of the war, Washington was content to keep the British confined to New York, although he never totally abandoned the idea of retaking the city.
The alliance with France had brought a large French army and a navy fleet. Facing the combined French and Colonial armies and the French fleet of 29 warships at his back, Cornwallis held out as long as he could, but on October 19, , he surrendered his forces. The key to this apparent paradox lies int he fact that, in common with many noblemen and monarchs of Europe, the first President possessed an estate name and a real, or family name, the latter being known as the patronymic, or paternal name.
So Happy Birthday, George Washington, if that is your real name. Leave a comment. Mail will not be published. Marin —. Written by David February 18th, at am. Posted in Politics. Name Mail will not be published Website.
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