George Washington

Ioniță Dragoș Alexandru 10F

George Washington (1732-1799) was

commander in chief of the Continental Army
during the American Revolutionary War (1775-
1783) and served two terms as the first U.S.
president, from 1789 to 1797.

Early life
George Washington was born on February 22,
1732, at his family’s plantation on Pope’s Creek
in Westmoreland County, in the British colony of
Virginia, to Augustine Washington (1694-1743) and his second wife,
Mary Ball Washington (1708-89). George, the eldest of Augustine and
Mary Washington’s six children, spent much of his childhood at Ferry
Farm, a plantation near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

He pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western

expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord
Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he fought the first
skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War.

American Revolution
By the late 1760s, Washington had experienced firsthand the effects of
rising taxes imposed on American colonists by the British, and came to
believe that it was in the best interests of the colonists to declare
independence from England.
When the Second Continental Congress convened a year later, the
American Revolution had begun in earnest, and Washington was named
commander in chief of the Continental Army.
Washington proved to be a better general than military strategist. His
strength lay not in his genius on the battlefield but in his ability to keep
the struggling colonial army together.
In October 1781, with the aid of the French, the Continental forces
were able to capture British troops in the Battle of Yorktown. This action
effectively brought the end the Revolutionary War and Washington was
declared a national hero.
Presidency
On April 30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of
Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office as the
first President of the United States. “As the first of every thing, in our
situation will serve to establish a Precedent,” he wrote James Madison,
“it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on
true principles.”
To his disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of his
first term. Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at the end of his
second. In his Farewell Address, he urged his countrymen to forswear
excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he
warned against long-term alliances.
Washington enjoyed less than three years of retirement at Mount
Vernon, for he died of a throat infection December 14, 1799. For months
the Nation mourned him.

Sources:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-
house/presidents/george-washington/
https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/george-washington
https://www.biography.com/us-president/george-washington
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington
https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Washington