AMERICAN HISTORY

George Washington  Biography U.S. President (1732–1799) George Washington was a leader of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, and was the first to become U.S. president. Synopsis George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Washington served as a general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies during the American Revolution, and later became the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. He died on December 14, 1799, in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Early Life and Family George Washington could trace his family's presence in North America to his great-grandfather, John Washington, who migrated from England to Virginia. The family held some distinction in England and was granted land by Henry VIII. Much of the family’s wealth was lost during the Puritan revolution and in 1657 George’s grandfather, Lawrence Washington, migrated to Virginia. Little information is available about the family ...

Louisiana Purchase,  1803 The Louisiana Purchase encompassed 530,000,000 acres of territory in North America that the  United States  purchased from  France  in 1803 for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase As the United States spread across the Appalachians, the Mississippi River became an increasingly important conduit for the produce of America’s West (which at that time referred to the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi). Since 1762,  Spain  had owned the territory of Louisiana, which included 828,000 square miles. The territory made up all or part of fifteen modern U.S. states between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The  Pinckney treaty of 1795  had resolved friction between Spain and the United States over the right to navigate the Mississippi and the right for Americans to transfer their goods to ocean-going vessels at New Orleans. With the Pinckney treaty in place and the weak Spanish empire in co...