Happy birthday, George

by Kathleen McCoy  |   

Students and faculty of the Forty-Ninth State Fellows Program in the UAA Honors College would like to call the attention of the University community to the anniversary of the birth of George Washington, the first U.S. President, born Feb. 22, 1732 (Gregorian).

Perhaps most famous for commanding the national army to victory over the British in the Revolutionary War, Washington may be more significant for American history for presiding over the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and in the precedents he set as president, establishing the new nation on a solid democratic republican footing by refusing to become president for life (as some statesmen urged), and maintaining an open and transparent administration which manifested his high moral character.

Washington died Dec. 14, 1799. His image appears on the U.S. dollar bill and the quarter coin. He is memorialized in the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., and his likeness is carved on Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota.

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