Mannheim [ENA] George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 in Wakefield, Virginia to wealthy plantation owners. He attended school in Williamsburg and was very interested in mathematics, which he later said fascinated him. This interest in mathematics was perhaps also decisive for his later military successes in the war against England.
In 1759 he married Martha Custis and, through clever land speculation and his wife’s fortune, achieved considerable wealth. And now to his military career: In the summer of 1753, when he was only 21 years old, he was appointed major in the Virginia militia and conducted negotiations with the French. As a lieutenant colonel, he took part in the campaigns against the French on the British side and gave command of larger units and as colonel he was officially given command of all troops in the state of Virginia. 1754 He joined the British regular forces and was given command of the defense of the western frontier of Virginia in August 1755.
And now some important cornerstones of his political career: from 1758 to 1774 he was a member of the Virginia city assembly. He then joined the independence movement, mainly motivated by the unfair tax system that England imposed on its colonies. He was also instrumental in boycotting British imports, which eventually led to the “Boston Tea Party”. In 1774 he was elected a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress. And now back to his military career. In the summer of 1775, at the start of the War of Independence against England, he was appointed commander of the Continental Army.
His strategic and organizational skills contributed greatly to the victory of his units over the British. As the commander of a diverse group of civilians and due to his previous command post with British troops, he made it very difficult for them to adequately display the professionalism and discipline of their soldiers. His first victories came in December 1776 at Trenton and January 1777 at Princeton. With the support of European officers such as the Prussian Wilhelm von Steuben, he was able to build a powerful and effective force capable of holding his own against highly trained British units.
However, the decisive victory against the British came only in October 1781 when, with the support of French troops, he defeated the British army in the battle of Yorktown and forced it to surrender. In September 1783, the Crown recognized the independence of the United States. Washington resigned his military command and went private. In 1787 he attended the Philadelphia constitutional convention as a delegate from Virginia and was elected president. Due to his great popularity, he was elected the first President of the United States in 1789 and re-elected four years later. In 1797 he retired from politics and died on December 14, 1799 at his estate of Mount Vernon in Virginia.
He was and remains the most popular president in the United States and the only president elected to a second term without opposition. The US capital, Washington DC, was named after him, as was the northwesternmost state in the United States. Many universities, schools, barracks, streets, squares and associations bore his name, which they still proudly carry today. And his face is immortalized on the dollar bill and on a very high military decoration, the “Purple Hearth”, which is awarded for serious wounds and military merits.
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