Plymouth
Plymouth is the name of various places:
Other meanings of the word Plymouth are:
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was the first President of the United States (1789–1797), the commander-in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
Washington's mother was Mary Washington and his father was August Washington. They owned a farm with slaves in Virginia.
Washington became a farmer like his father. His farm was called Mount Vernon. He also worked as a surveyor, measuring land. Washington always wanted to be a soldier and was active in the colonial militia of Virginia. He was sent several times to the "forks of the Ohio River", now called Pittsburgh. His job was to get rid of the French who were trying to take control of the Ohio River Valley.
He failed and many of his men were killed. The fight opened the French and Indian War, bringing Britain into the Seven Years' War. In 1758 he was elected to the Virginia legislature.
In 1759, Washington married a widow named Martha Custis. The marriage produced no children.
Washington was a delegate to the First Continental Congress, which was created by the Thirteen Colonies to respond to various laws passed by the British government. The Second Continental Congress chose him to be the commanding general of the Continental Army. Washington led the army from 1775 until the end of the war in 1783. After losing the big Battle of Long Island, and being chased across New Jersey, Washington led his troops back across the Delaware River on Christmas Day, 1776, in a surprise attack on Hessian mercenaries at the small Battle of Princeton and Trenton, New Jersey. The British had more troops and more supplies than Washington, however, Washington kept his troops together and won these small battles.
Overall, Washington did not win many battles, but he never let the British destroy his army. With the help of the French army and navy, Washington made a British army surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, as the final major battle of the Revolutionary War. The war officially ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
When the Revolutionary War ended, Washington was considered a national hero. He was offered a government position that would have been considered a dictatorship over the colonies, but in a surprising move, Washington refused, left the army, and returned to Mount Vernon. He wanted the colonies to have a strong government but did not wish to head that government, nor did he want the colonies to be run by a tyrant.
Washington was one of the men who said the country needed a new constitution. The Constitutional Convention met in 1787, with Washington presiding. The delegates wrote the Constitution of the United States, and all the states ratified it and joined the new government.
In 1789, Washington was elected president without any competition, making him the first President of the United States. While Washington did not belong to any political party, he agreed with certain Federalist Party policies, such as the country should have a standing army and a national bank. He was re-elected to a second term. After his second term, Washington decided not to run for reelection, despite his popularity remaining high. His decision, to stop at 2 terms, set a precedent that every president followed until Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.
In Washington's farewell address in 1796, he warned the country not to divide into political parties and not to get involved in wars outside of the United States. Washington's non-intervention foreign policy was supported by most Americans for over one hundred years. His advice to avoid political parties was completely ignored, as parties were already active.
Washington went back home to Mount Vernon (Virginia) after his second term ended in 1797. He died two years later, on December 14, 1799, in Mount Vernon, at the age of 67, from pneumonia.
From his marriage, George Washington owned a substantial amount of farm land, where he grew tobacco, wheat, and vegetables. Washington also owned more than 100 slaves, who were freed upon his death. He did not have much money in cash and had to borrow money while he was president. At his death, Washington's estate was worth over $500,000.
It is a common misconception that George Washington had wooden teeth, as false teeth. He did, however, try many different ways to replace his teeth, including having teeth carved from elk's teeth or ivory. Ivory and bone both have hairline fractures in them, which normally cannot be seen, but started to darken due to Washington's use of wine. The darkened, thin fractures in the bone made the lines look like the grain in a piece of wood. George Washington's teeth started falling out when he was about 22 years old, and he had only one tooth left by the time he became president. It was difficult for him to talk or to eat. At one time, he had false teeth with a special hole so the one tooth he still had could poke through. He tried to keep them smelling clean by soaking them in wine, but instead they became mushy and black. In 1796, a dentist had to pull out George Washington's last tooth, and he kept his tooth in a gold locket attached to his watch chain. When the time came for the president to have his portrait painted, cotton was pushed under his lips to make him look as if he had teeth. The cotton made his mouth puff out, as is seen on the picture on the US $1 bill.
Notes
February 22
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809  – April 15, 1865) was an American politician. He was the 16th President of the United States. He was president from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. Just five days after most of the Confederate forces had surrendered and the war was ending, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln. Lincoln was the first president of the United States to be assassinated. Lincoln has been remembered as the "Great Emancipator" because he worked to end slavery in the United States.
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Kentucky, United States. His parents were Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. His family was very poor. Abraham had one brother and one sister. His brother died in childhood. They grew up in a small log cabin, with just one room inside. Although slavery was legal in Kentucky at that time, Lincoln's father, who was a religious Baptist, refused to own any slaves.
When Lincoln was seven years old, his family moved to Indiana. Later they moved to Illinois. In his childhood he helped his father on the farm, but when he was 22 years old he left home and moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he worked in a general store.
Later, he said that he had gone to school for just one year, but that was enough to learn how to read, write, and do simple math. In 1842, he married Mary Todd. They had four children, but three of them died when they were very young.
Abraham Lincoln was sometimes called Abe Lincoln or "Honest Abe" because of a legend stating that he ran miles to give a customer the right amount of change. The nickname "Honest Abe" came from a time when he started a business that failed. Instead of running away like many people would have, he stayed and worked to pay his debt.
Lincoln started his political career in 1832 when he ran for the IGA Illinois General Assembly, but he lost the election. He served as a captain in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War, a war with Native American tribes. When he moved to Springfield in 1837, he began to work as a lawyer. Soon, he became one of the most highly respected lawyers in Illinois.
In 1837, as a member of the Illinois General Assembly, Lincoln issued a written protest of its passage of a resolution stating that slavery could not be abolished in Washington, D.C.