1.
Massachusetts
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It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the Massachusett tribe, which inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston, over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, during the 20th century, Massachusetts economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, in 1786, Shays Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, in the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution. The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. Massachusetts public school students place among the top nations in the world in academic performance, the official name of the state is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While this designation is part of the official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the position and powers within the United States as other states. Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans, the first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, arrived via the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag people. This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, the event known as the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World which lasted for three days
2.
Nipmuc
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The tribe were first encountered by Europeans in 1630, when John Acquittamaug arrived with maize to sell to the starving colonists of Boston, Massachusetts. The colonists introduced pathogens, such as smallpox, to which the Native Americans had no prior exposure and they were also exposed to alcohol for the first time, which led to huge numbers of natives succumbing to the effects of alcoholism. Many of the Nipmuc were interned on Deer Island in Boston Harbor and perished, by the 19th century, the Nipmuc were reduced to wards of the state that were administered by state-appointed commissioners. The passage of the Massachusetts Enfranchisement Act of 1869 effectively detribalised the Nipmuc, Nipmuc communities continued to survive, and the tribe received state recognition in 1979, but efforts at federal recognition have not met with success. The tribe is first mentioned in a 1631 letter by Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley as the Nipnet and this derives from Nippenet and includes variants such as Neipnett, Neepnet, Nepmet, Nibenet, Nopnat and Nipneet. Colonists and the Native Americans themselves used this term extensively after the growth of the Praying towns, daniel Gookin, Superintendent to the Native Americans and assistant of Eliot, was careful to distinguish the Nipmuc, Wabquasset, Quaboag and Nashaway tribes. The tribe uses several acres held in Webster, Massachusetts and across the border in Thompson, Hassanamisco Nipmuc or Grafton Indians Descendants of the Praying town of Hassanamessit which is now located in Grafton, Massachusetts. The Cisco family maintained their four acres from the final Hassamessit land sales, Natick Massachusett or Natick Nipmuc The descendants of the Praying town of Natick, Massachusetts do not retain any of their original lands. The Natick are primarily descended from the Massachusett as well as Nipmuc ancestry, Connecticut Nipmuc Descendants of various Nipmuc that survived or re-located to Connecticut. The Nipmuc of Connecticut, unlike in Massachusetts, are not recognized by their state, Governor Michael Dukakis issued Executive Order #106 which proclaimed that State agencies shall deal directly with. Nipmuc. on matters affecting the Nipmuc Tribe as well as calling for the creation of a state Commission on Indian Affairs. The state also calls for the examination of all remains and to notify the Commission. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts also cited the continuity of the Nipmuc with the tribe and commended tribal efforts to preserve their culture. The state also symbolically repealed the General Court Act of 1675 that banned Native Americans from the City of Boston during King Philips War, the tribe also works closely with the state to undergo various archaeological excavations and preservation campaigns. The Nipmuc, represented by just the Hassanamisco, were added to the Federal Register as Petitioner #69, members of the Chaubunagungamaug joined the efforts. By 11 July 1995, the Nipmuc were placed on active consideration, palaeo-Indians entered the region from the south-west during the retreat of the Wisconsin Glacier sometime around 9000 BC. Evidence includes various tools that have been uncovered at the Bull Run site in Ipswich. These early peoples hunted the tundra environment, probably in search of caribou, there was a great shift to more permanent hunting camps and expansion of tool making abilities
3.
Ipswich, Massachusetts
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Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,175 at the 2010 census, home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island. A residential community with a vibrant tourism industry, the town is famous for its clams, celebrated annually at the Ipswich Chowderfest, and for Crane Beach, Ipswich was incorporated as a town in 1634. Ipswich was founded by John Winthrop the Younger, son of John Winthrop, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and its first governor, several hundred colonists sailed from England in 1630 in a fleet of 11 ships, including Winthrops flagship, the Arbella. Investigating the region of Salem and Cape Ann, they entertained aboard the Arbella for a day, June 12,1630, the event was recorded in Winthrops journal on the 13th, but Winthrop did not say how they overcame the language barrier. The name they heard from Masconomet concerning the country over which he ruled has been reconstructed as Wonnesquamsauke, the colonists, however, sailed to the south where some buildings had already been prepared for them at a place newly named Charlestown. That winter they lost a few hundred colonists from malnutrition and disease and they also experienced their first noreaster, which cost them some fingers and toes, as well as houses destroyed by the fires they kept burning day and night. Just as Winthrop was handing out the last handful of grain, John the Younger resided with his father and stepmother until 1633, when he resolved to settle in Agawam, with the permission of the General Court of Massachusetts. Captain John Smith had written about the Angoam or Aggawom region in 1614, referring to it as an excellent habitation, being a good and safe harbour. There is no record of any resistance to the colonization either at Charlestown or at Agawam. A plague of 1616–1618 and again in the early 1630s, perhaps smallpox brought from abroad, had devastated the once populous Indian tribes. The colonists encountered but few natives, John the Younger and 12 men aboard a shallop sailed into Ipswich harbor and took up residence there. Two men continued up the river to a meadow, which they called New Meadows. Agawam was incorporated on August 5,1634, as Ipswich, after Ipswich in the county of Suffolk, the name Ipswich was taken in acknowledgment of the great honor and kindness done to our people which took shipping there. Pioneers would become farmers, fishermen, shipbuilders or traders, the tidal Ipswich River provided water power for mills, and salt marshes supplied hay for livestock. A cottage industry in lace-making developed, but in 1687, Ipswich residents, led by the Reverend John Wise, protested a tax imposed by the governor, Sir Edmund Andros. As Englishmen, they argued, taxation without representation was unacceptable, citizens were jailed, but then Andros was recalled to England in 1689, and the new British sovereigns, William and Mary, issued colonists another charter. The rebellion is the reason the town itself the Birthplace of American Independence
4.
King Philip's War
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King Philips War was an armed conflict between American Indian inhabitants of present-day New England and English colonists and their Indian allies in 1675–78. The war is named for Metacomet, the Wampanoag chief who adopted the English name Philip due to the relations between his father and the Mayflower Pilgrims. The war continued in the most northern reaches of New England until the signing of the Treaty of Casco Bay in April 1678, Metacom was the second son of Wampanoag chief Massasoit, who had coexisted peacefully with the Pilgrims. Metacom succeeded his brother in 1662 and reacted against the European settlers continued encroaching onto Wampanoag lands, at Taunton in 1671, he was humiliated when colonists forced him to sign a new peace agreement that included the surrender of Indian guns. Officials in Plymouth Colony hanged three Wampanoags in 1675 for the murder of an Indian, and Metacoms followers and allies launched an assault on colonial towns throughout the region. Metacoms forces gained initial victories in the first year, but then the Indian alliance began to unravel, by the end of the conflict, the Wampanoags and their Narragansett allies were almost completely destroyed. Metacom anticipated their defeat and returned to his home at Mt. Hope. More than half of New Englands towns were attacked by Indians, King Philips War began the development of a greater European-American identity. The colonists trials, without significant English government support, gave them an identity separate. The Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower and founded Plymouth Plantation expended great effort in forging friendship and they traveled long distances to make peace with Chief Massasoit, and Governor William Bradford made a gift of his magnificent and prized red horse coat upon seeing that the chief admired it. By 1675, the efforts at friendship failed. Plymouth, Massachusetts was established in 1620 with significant early help from local Indians, particularly Squanto and Massasoit, the colonists progressively expanded throughout the territories of the several Algonquian-speaking tribes in the region. Prior to King Philips War, tensions fluctuated between Indian tribes and the colonists, but relations were generally peaceful, many of the neighboring tribes had been traditional competitors and enemies. As the colonial population increased, the New Englanders expanded their settlements along the coastal plain. By 1675, they had established a few towns in the interior between Boston and the Connecticut River settlements. The Wampanoag tribe under Metacomets leadership had entered into an agreement with the Plymouth Colony, however, in the decades preceding the war it, became clear to them that the treaty did not mean that the Colonists were not allowed to settle in new territories. Metacomet became sachem of the Pokanoket and Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy after the death in 1662 of his older brother, the latter had succeeded their father Massasoit as chief. Well known to the English before his ascension as paramount chief to the Wampanoag, the Plymouth colonists had put in place laws making it illegal to do commerce with the Wampanoags
5.
Henry Knox
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Henry Knox was a military officer of the Continental Army and later the United States Army, who also served as the first United States Secretary of War from 1789 to 1794. Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, he owned and operated a bookstore there, cultivating an interest in military history and joining a local artillery company. When the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, he befriended General George Washington, in this role he accompanied Washington on most of his campaigns, and had some involvement in many major actions of the war. He established training centers for artillerymen and manufacturing facilities for weaponry that were valuable assets to the fledgling nation, following the adoption of the United States Constitution, he became President Washingtons Secretary of War. In this role he oversaw the development of coastal fortifications, worked to improve the preparedness of local militia, Knoxs idealistic views on the subject were frustrated by ongoing illegal settlements and fraudulent land transfers involving Indian lands. He retired to what is now Thomaston, Maine, in 1795 and he died in 1806 from an infection he contracted after swallowing a chicken bone, leaving an estate that was bankrupt. Henry Knoxs parents, William and Mary, were of Scotch-Irish origin and his father was a ship builder who, due to financial reverses, left the family for St Eustatius in the West Indies where he died in 1762 of unknown causes. Henry was admitted to the Boston Latin School, where he studied Greek, Latin, arithmetic, since he was the oldest son still at home when his father died, he left school at the age of 12 and became a clerk in a bookstore to support his mother. The shops owner, Nicholas Bowes, became a father figure for the boy, allowing him to browse the shelves of the store. The inquisitive future war hero, when he was not running errands, taught himself French, learned some philosophy and advanced mathematics and he immersed himself in literature from a tender age. However, Knox was also involved in Bostons street gangs, becoming one of the toughest fighters in his neighborhood, impressed by a military demonstration, at 18 he joined a local artillery company called The Train. On March 5,1770 Knox was a witness to the Boston massacre, according to his affidavit, he attempted to defuse the situation, trying to convince the British soldiers to return to their quarters. He also testified at the trials of the soldiers, in which all, in 1771 he opened his own bookshop, the London Book Store, in Boston opposite Williams Court in Cornhill. The store was, in the words of a contemporary, a resort for the British officers and Tory ladies. Boasting an impressive selection of excellent English products and managed by a friendly proprietor, as a bookseller, Knox built strong business ties with British suppliers and developed relationships with his customers, but he retained his childhood aspirations. Largely self-educated, he stocked books on science, and also questioned soldiers who frequented his shop in military matters. The genial giant initially enjoyed reasonable success, but his profits slumped after the Boston Port Bill. In 1772 he cofounded the Boston Grenadier Corps as an offshoot of The Train, shortly before his 23rd birthday Knox accidentally discharged a shotgun, shooting two fingers off his left hand
6.
Fort Ticonderoga
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Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain in northern New York in the United States. It was of importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played an important role during the American Revolutionary War. The site controlled a river alongside the mouth of the rapids-infested La Chute River in the 3. The terrain amplified the importance of the site, the name Ticonderoga comes from the Iroquois word tekontaró, ken, meaning it is at the junction of two waterways. During the 1758 Battle of Carillon,4,000 French defenders were able to repel an attack by 16,000 British troops near the fort, in 1759, the British returned and drove a token French garrison from the fort. Cannons captured were transported to Boston where their deployment forced the British to abandon the city in March 1776. The only direct attack on the fort took place in September 1777, the British abandoned the fort after the failure of the Saratoga campaign, and it ceased to be of military value after 1781. It fell into ruin, leading people to strip it of some of its stone, metal. It became a stop on tourist routes of the area in the 19th century and its private owners restored the fort early in the 20th century. A foundation now operates the fort as a tourist attraction, museum, the route was relatively free of obstacles to navigation, with only a few portages. Although the site provides commanding views of the extent of Lake Champlain, Mount Defiance, at 853 ft. Indians had occupied the area for centuries before French explorer Samuel de Champlain first arrived there in 1609, Champlain recounted that the Algonquins, with whom he was traveling, battled a group of Iroquois nearby. In 1642, French missionary Isaac Jogues was the first white man to traverse the portage at Ticonderoga while escaping a battle between the Iroquois and members of the Huron tribe and these colonial conflicts reached their height in the French and Indian War, which began in 1754. The next year saw the building of the four main bastions, work slowed in 1757, when many of the troops prepared for and participated in the attack on Fort William Henry. The barracks and demi-lunes were not completed until spring 1758, the French built the fort to control the south end of Lake Champlain and prevent the British from gaining military access to the lake. The Joannes and Languedoc bastions overlooked the lake to the south, the walls were seven feet high and fourteen feet thick, and the whole works was surrounded by a glacis and a dry moat five feet deep and 15 feet wide. When the walls were first erected in 1756, they were made of squared wooden timbers, the French then began to dress the walls with stone from a quarry about one mile away, although this work was never fully completed. When the main defenses became ready for use, the fort was armed with cannons hauled from Montreal, the fort contained three barracks and four storehouses
7.
Siege of Boston
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The Siege of Boston was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army garrisoned in what was then the city of Boston. Both sides had to deal with supply and personnel issues over the course of the siege. British resupply and reinforcement activities were limited to sea access, after eleven months of the siege, the British abandoned Boston by sailing to Nova Scotia. The siege began on April 19 after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress formed the Continental Army from the militia, with George Washington as its Commander in Chief. Military actions during the remainder of the siege were limited to raids, minor skirmishes. In November 1775, Washington sent the 25-year-old bookseller-turned-soldier Henry Knox to bring to Boston the heavy artillery that had captured at Fort Ticonderoga. In a technically complex and demanding operation, Knox brought many cannons to the Boston area by January 1776, in March 1776, these artillery fortified Dorchester Heights, thereby threatening the British supply lifeline. The British commander William Howe saw the British position as indefensible and withdrew the British forces in Boston to the British stronghold at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on March 17. Prior to 1775, the British had imposed taxes and import duties on the American colonies, parliament authorized Gage, among other actions, to disband the local provincial government. It was reformed into the Provincial Congress, and continued to meet, the Provincial Congress called for the organization of local militias and coordinated the accumulation of weapons and other military supplies. Under the terms of the Boston Port Act, Gage closed the Boston port, when British forces were sent to seize military supplies from the town of Concord on April 19,1775, militia companies from surrounding towns opposed them in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. At Concord, some of the British forces were routed in a confrontation at the North Bridge, the British troops, on their march back to Boston, were then engaged in a running battle, suffering heavy casualties. All of the New England colonies raised militias in response to this alarm and they particularly blocked the Charlestown Neck, and the Boston Neck, leaving only the harbor and sea access under British control. In the days following the creation of the siege line, the size of the colonial forces grew, as militias from New Hampshire, Rhode Island. General Gage turned his attention to fortifying easily defensible positions, in the south, at Roxbury, Gage ordered lines of defenses with 10 twenty-four pound guns. In Boston proper, four hills were quickly fortified and they were to be the main defense of the city. Over time, each of these hills were strengthened, Gage also decided to abandon Charlestown, removing the beleaguered forces to Boston
8.
Massachusetts Route 9
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Route 9 is a major east–west state highway in Massachusetts. Along with U. S. Route 20, Route 2, and Interstate 90, Route 9 is one of the major east–west routes of Massachusetts, the road ends near the center of the city of Pittsfield. Route 9 passes through six counties and twenty-eight cities and towns and it begins in the western Massachusetts city of Pittsfield, at U. S. Route 20. It has a concurrency with U. S and it then crosses the Connecticut River at the Calvin Coolidge Bridge, just downstream from Elwell Island. It goes past the area of Hadley before passing the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst College. From Amherst, it winds its way into western Worcester County, south of the Quabbin Reservoir, from Worcester, it crosses Lake Quinsigamond into Shrewsbury. At this point, Route 9 becomes the main artery of the MetroWest region. It passes Shoppers World and the Natick Mall, New Englands largest mall, beginning in the Golden Triangle, Route 9 becomes one of the major routes into Boston, serving as a valuable bypass to the Mass Pike and its tolls. It crosses Interstate 95 in Wellesley before crossing the Charles River into Newton and Brookline. It enters the city of Boston by crossing over Brooklines former namesake, the E Branch of the MBTA Green Line roughly follows Huntington Avenue underground from Copley Square until it rises above ground at the Northeastern Portal. Route 9 continues past Symphony Hall and The First Church of Christ, Scientist, from Dalton to Goshen in the Berkshires, the road follows the old Berkshire Trail. Between Worcester and Boston, Route 9 follows the path of the 19th-century Worcester Turnpike and this route originally included a floating bridge over Lake Quinsigamond in Shrewsbury. In the 20th century, Route 9 became the focus for urban sprawl in towns like Newton, further west, in Framingham, Route 9 was home to one of the first modern shopping malls, the aptly named Shoppers World. In Natick, Route 9 is officially the Ted Williams Highway, named after the Red Sox sports legend Ted Williams, in Newton, it is officially the United Spanish War Veterans Highway. From 1903 to 1932, the Boston and Worcester Street Railway ran mostly via Route 9, today the E branch of the MBTAs Green Line follows Route 9 along Huntington Avenue. For more information, refer to the Massachusetts Highway Project Listing
9.
British people
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British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown dependencies, and their descendants. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era, because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists. Modern Britons are descended mainly from the ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles in and before the 11th century, Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse. The British are a diverse, multi-national and multicultural society, with regional accents, expressions. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them, the group included Ireland, which was referred to as Ierne inhabited by the different race of Hiberni, and Britain as insula Albionum, island of the Albions. The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britanni. It has been suggested that name derives from a Gaulish description translated as people of the forms. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island, during the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people. At that time, it was the held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the ancient Britons. This notion was supported by such as the Historia Regum Britanniae. Wales and Cornwall, and north, i. e. Cumbria, Strathclyde and this legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, oppenheimer continues that the majority of the people of the British Isles share genetic commonalities with the Basques, ranging from highs of 90% in Wales to lows of 66% in East Anglia. Oppenheimers opinion is that. by far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia, ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales. The English had been unified under a single state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh. However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood in the 13th century
10.
George Washington
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George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations establishment and came to be known as the father of the country, both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was widely admired for his leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. Washingtons incumbency established many precedents still in use today, such as the system, the inaugural address. His retirement from office two terms established a tradition that lasted until 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. The 22nd Amendment now limits the president to two elected terms and he was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. In his youth, he became an officer in the colonial militia during the first stages of the French. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress commissioned him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, in that command, Washington forced the British out of Boston in 1776 but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the middle of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause and his strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies, after victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which devised a new form of government for the United States. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation and he supported Alexander Hamiltons programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795 and he remained non-partisan, never joining the Federalist Party, although he largely supported its policies. Washingtons Farewell Address was a primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home, upon his death, Washington was eulogized as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen by Representative Henry Lee III of Virginia. He was revered in life and in death, scholarly and public polling consistently ranks him among the top three presidents in American history and he has been depicted and remembered in monuments, public works, currency, and other dedications to the present day. He was born on February 11,1731, according to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22,1732. Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave and his great-grandfather John Washington emigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, Georges father Augustine
