American military leader George Washington commanded the forces in the Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783, presided over the Constitutional convention of 1787, served from 1789 as elected president of the fledgling country, the United States, shunned partisan politics, and in his farewell address of 1796 warned against foreign involvement.

Washington relieved Artemas Ward of the command and drove the British from the city of Boston in 1776.

Othmar Hermann Ammann in 1931 designed the bridge in the city of New York that bears his name.

In a planter family, he learned the requisite morals, manners, and body of knowledge for an 18th century gentleman of Virginia.

He pursued two intertwined interests: arts and western expansion. At 16 years of age in 1738, he helped to survey lands of Shenandoah for Thomas, Lord Fairfax.

Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he fought the first skirmishes of the French and Indian War. In the next year as an aide to Edward Braddock, general, he escaped injury although four bullets ripped his coat, and people shot two horses.

From 1759, Washington managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the House of Burgesses of Virginia to the outbreak. Married to a widow, Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, he devoted to a busy and happy life. British merchants exploited and regulations hampered Washington like his fellow planters. As the acute quarrel with the mother, he moderately but firmly voiced his resistance to the restrictions.

The second Continental congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775 and then elected Washington of the delegates of Virginia as chief of the continental Army. On 3 July 1775 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took his ill-trained troops and embarked to six last grueling years.

He recognized early the best strategy to harass the British. He reported to Congress, "we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn." Ensuing battles saw him fall back slowly and then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies, he received the surrender of Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Washington longed to retire to his fields at Mount Vernon. Nevertheless, he quickly recognized that the nation under its Articles of Confederation functioned not well and so moved in the prime steps to Philadelphia in 1787. With the new ratification, the Electoral College then unanimously elected Washington.

He infringed not upon the policy making powers of Congress. Nevertheless, the determination of policy preponderantly concerned him. Washington then refused to accept entirely the recommendations of either pro-French Thomas Jefferson or pro-British Alexander Hamilton at Treasury. Rather, he insisted upon a neutral course until able strength.

To his disappointment, two developed before the end of his first term. Wearied and old, he retired at the end of his second term. He urged his men to forswear excessive spirit and geographical distinctions. In affairs, he opposed long-term alliances.

Washington enjoyed less than three years of retirement at Mount Vernon, for he died of a throat infection. For months, the nation mourned him.