Take Charge With This George Washington Quiz

In 1792, George Washington held a design contest for the future White House, which architect James Hoban won. He based the presidential mansion on houses in the Irish countryside built in the neoclassical style — ​​characterized by grandeur of scale, simple geometric forms, and the use of columns. Several other submissions were considered, including Thomas Jefferson’s design for an elevated house.

At age 17, Washington earned his surveyor’s license at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and he returned decades later to serve as the college’s first American chancellor. Washington wasn’t the only U.S. President associated with the institution; Virginians Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler all received their undergraduate degrees from William & Mary.

Before Washington took office, 11 of the 13 original colonies entered the new nation as official states. Shortly after he assumed the presidency, North Carolina and Rhode Island joined as well. America expanded to 16 states under Washington, adding Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The next state to join, Ohio, wasn’t admitted until Thomas Jefferson’s presidency.

Washington was an avid dog lover, and he played a key role in the development of the breed now known as the American foxhound. Washington kept packs of British hounds, which he bred with French imports, refining the breed to be better suited for fox hunts. The American foxhound is now the official state dog of Washington’s native Virginia.

A 1797 Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington was the first piece of artwork purchased to hang in the White House. In 1814, British troops set fire to the White House, but not before First Lady Dolley Madison ordered the famous full-length portrait be saved. The painting returned to the White House in 1817 and hangs in the East Room today.

There were only 13 states during the first presidential election, and just 10 of those — excluding New York, Rhode Island, and North Carolina — cast electoral votes. Washington was declared the victor with 69 electoral votes, earning one vote from each elector and also carrying every state. For Vice President, electors awarded 34 of their 69 votes to John Adams.

Washington served in Virginia’s House of Burgesses for 15 years before fighting in the American Revolution. He won his first election in 1758 as a representative of Frederick County, a role he held through 1765. Washington later represented Fairfax County until 1775, when the Virginia governor dissolved the government body, much to Washington’s surprise.

Washington survived a scare with smallpox after a 1751 trip to Barbados as a teenager. While the affliction left his face with minor scarring, his harrowing experience paid off decades later. Knowing the disease’s debilitating effects, Washington mandated inoculation against smallpox for members of the Continental Army to ensure they remained healthy and able to fight.

“I cannot tell a lie,” were the words purportedly uttered by a young George Washington after he chopped down his father’s cherry tree. This myth was actually conceived of by Washington biographer Mason Locke Weems, whose book “The Life of Washington” was first published in 1800. The cherry tree story appeared in the book’s fifth edition in 1806.

Despite being one of the Founding Fathers of American independence, Washington possessed a genealogical connection with English royalty; he descended from King Edward III through his paternal grandmother. What’s more, Washington was a distant relative of the Churchill family, whose most notable member, Winston, served as prime minister of the United Kingdom.

In 1791, a whiskey tax was levied on farmers and distillers that was met with immediate protest despite the support of local governments. Three years later, a group in western Pennsylvania rebelled against the tax, and President George Washington was forced to send troops to quell the riots. The tax was eventually repealed in 1802 under President Thomas Jefferson.

Washington was known to frequent New York City’s Fraunces Tavern during the Revolutionary War, and on December 4, 1783 — just days after the last British troops departed American soil — the general and his Continental Army gathered there so he could bid the troops farewell. The restaurant has been in continuous operation for over 300 years and features an accompanying museum.

After the U.S. Supreme Court was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789, Washington appointed a record 10 justices to the court, including two chief justices. Washington’s first set of appointments to the highest court included six individuals, led by Chief Justice John Jay. He also appointed 28 judges to U.S. district courts while in office.

Washington famously opposed political parties, opting instead to run for President as a nonpartisan candidate. Political parties began to take hold around Washington’s time in office, and two diverging viewpoints formed a clear political division in American society by the end of the 18th century. Until his death, the leader believed that the country was better off without the inclusion of party politics.

Amid low morale, Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River on a cold Christmas night in 1776 and executed a surprise attack on Hessian forces in Trenton, New Jersey, reigniting the fight for American independence. The site is preserved at Washington Crossing Historic Park, where visitors can watch reenactments of the crossing every December. The moment was immortalized by Emanuel Leutze's famous 1851 painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware."

Martha Dandridge became Martha Washington when the couple married on January 6, 1759, and she served as the inaugural First Lady of the United States upon the start of George Washington’s presidency in 1789. The Washingtons were married for 40 years, and they are interred side by side in a marble sarcophagus at Mount Vernon.

Washington was celebrated as the “American Cincinnatus,” nicknamed after the hero of the early Roman Republic. In 458 CE, the Roman Senate elected former general Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus as dictator to lead them through a military crisis. Cincinnatus was retired at the time, but duly left his farm and led the Romans to victory over foreign invaders before retiring and returning to his crops.

The U.S. military's oldest medal, the Purple Heart — which bears Washington's profile — was created by the founding father as a symbol of meritorious service. While the Purple Heart has a long history dating back to the American Revolution, it hasn't always been actively awarded. General Douglas MacArthur revived the honor to mark the bicentennial of Washington's birth in 1932.

Unlike many other men of his wealth and social class, Washington did not attend college. After considering a career in the Royal Navy, he became a land surveyor, largely teaching himself the tricks of the trade. He made maps for both private groups and the Colonial government, and was also able to use these skills to survey and acquire thousands of acres for himself, vastly increasing his wealth.

France and the United States had a close relationship from the start: ​​France fought as America’s ally during the American Revolution, and that fight for independence inspired similar social and political movements around the world, particularly the French Revolution, which began in 1787. In 1792, Washington and several other leaders were granted honorary French citizenship for their contributions to the cause of liberty.

On October 19, 1781, British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to American and French troops after the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, effectively ensuring American independence. The battlefield has been preserved as a National Historical Park and features exhibits including field tents used by Washington, as well as the Moore House, where the surrender was negotiated.

The Seven Years’ War (sometimes called the French and Indian War) started as a conflict between Britain and France over control of territory in what is now the American Midwest. In 1754, Washington, an inexperienced Virginia militia officer who had never seen combat, was sent to deliver a message to French troops encroaching on British territory in Pennsylvania. When he blundered into a skirmish with the French, it helped spark a global conflict that lasted for years.

Washington began making whiskey in his sixties, to utilize the abundance of rye grown at Mt. Vernon. Within two years, his distillery was the largest in America, producing 11,000 gallons and netting him $120,000 annually in today’s dollars. The distillery burned down in 1811 but was rebuilt by archaeologists in the late 1990s. It now produces whiskey using the same method developed in the 18th century.

After a string of defeats during the American Revolutionary War, including the British capture of Philadelphia, Washington’s troops settled into a winter camp in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Disease and a lack of supplies led to the deaths of 2,000 soldiers. But the camp gave Washington and his aide, Prussian military officer Baron von Steuben, time to retrain the Colonial troops, and is considered a turning point in the war.

Washington suffered poor dental health for most of his life, losing nearly all of his natural teeth by middle age. He was forced to wear a series of dentures, which caused him much discomfort and embarrassment. Despite later myths, the rudimentary devices weren’t wooden, but made of ivory and filed-down teeth taken from animals as well as other humans.

Though it’s the standard today, Washington shocked the nation when he left the presidency after just two terms. His Farewell Address, published in 1796 and largely written by former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, warned of the dangers political parties and factions posed to the still-new nation, and urged political neutrality against entanglement in foreign conflicts.

​​George Washington was born in 1732 into a prosperous Virginia family. His father, Augustine, began construction on the Mt. Vernon property (located along the Potomac River and originally called Little Hunting Creek) shortly after young George’s birth. Washington later undertook a massive expansion of the house and plantation in the 1750s, after assuming control following his stepbrother’s death.

Although the White House is home to U.S. Presidents today, the nation’s first leader never lived there. Washington’s first inauguration was held in 1789 in New York City, which was the U.S. capital at the time. Washington took his oath of office in Federal Hall, where a statue now marks the occasion. He and the government later moved to Philadelphia, which was the capital until 1800, when the government moved again to Washington, D.C.

Thousands of cities and towns are named for America’s Presidents, but Washington is the only one with a state (not to mention the nation’s capital) named after him. The region that is now Washington state was originally called “Columbia” after the nearby river. Its name was changed to honor the country’s first President in the 1850s, when the area was admitted as a new U.S. territory.

During the American Revolutionary War, George Washington served as commander in chief of the Continental Army, a unit formed in 1775 to fight for independence from the British crown. Washington served as commander for a total of eight years until finally ceding the role on December 23, 1783, just a month before the war’s end.

John Adams served as Vice President during the Washington administration from 1789 until 1797. Other members of Washington’s Cabinet included Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, and Timothy Pickering as secretaries of state, Alexander Hamilton and Oliver Wolcott Jr. as secretaries of the treasury, and Henry Knox and James McHenry as secretaries of war.