Founding Father George Washington

One of the seven Founding Fathers of the United States of America, George Washington was born on 22nd February 1732 in Popes reek, Virginia. At that time, 13 plantations that later became the first 13 states of the USA were under British rule who had robbed the land from the indigenous (in Virginia's case, the Powhatan, the Monocans, the Lanoy, the Nottoway and the Weaperness). However, George's focus was on the plantation of enslaved Africans that he inherited from his dad. George spent his 20s as a soldier where he fought against Native Americans and the French in the French and Indian War (Indian in this case was the name Natives were given back the day, something they hate to this day). Washington was elected to Virginia's colonial legislature (government) at the age of 26. As a government official, Washington criticized the unfair laws imposed on the colonies (like high taxes on items like tea). At the start of the American War of Independence, Washington was one of Virginia's representatives at the First and Second Continental Congresses and it was the Second Continental Congress that Thomas Jefferson (also a Virginia resident) penned the Declaration of Independence in July 1776 which liberated the 13 colonies from Britain as the 13 states of an independent America. Washington led America's newly formed army across the icy Delaware River during the harsh winter of 1776. A couple of years after the war ended, state representatives gathered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Congress and created the Constitution of the United States which serves as the United States government founding document. One of the key points in this document in relation to George Washington was that state representatives would elect a president. The vote was won by George with John Adams becoming vice president (he got the second highest votes).
From 30 April 1789 to 3rd March 1797, Washington was America's first president, during which he enacted America's first copyright law which saw the rights to one's work last only a short 14 years before entering the public domain), oversaw the birth of Washington D.C. (named in his honour) as well as specified the White House's location (he spent his presidency in Philadelphia), started the cabinet of advisors tradition, set precedents for the POTUS social life, led troops to stop the Whiskey Rebellion and issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation. Washington also started the idea of the President Of The United States having a two term presidency (each term of 4 years totalling up to 8 years of presidency) but it only became a legal limit in the 1950s. Despite never having kids of his own, Washington was the stepfather to his wife Martha's children from a previous marriage. Washington retired to Mount Vernon in 1797 and wrote in his will that slaves at his plantation would have his permission to go when his wife died. Washington died on 14 December 1799 and today, he is entombed in his eponymous tomb in Mount Vernon, US State of Virginia. His vice president John Adams became the 2nd President of the United States.


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