George Washington took the oath of office to become the first President of the United States of America on April 30, 1789. Yet his influence on the history and development of the United States and on its office of President started some 35 years earlier, when, as a young man, he led a small force of militia men into a battle later called a massacre. Had one only this beginning

George Washington's Contributions When George Washington died on December 14, 1799, he was hailed as America's "savior" and the "father of liberty" (Petri pp). Today, he is referred to as the father of this country. Delivering Washington's eulogy, John Marshall said, "The hero, the sage, the patriot of America, the man on whom in times of danger every eye was turned and all hopes were placed, lives now only in his

Leadership In his Pulitzer Prize winning biography, His Excellency George Washington, Joseph J. Ellis presents a balanced and comprehensive portrait on the nation's first president that steers a course between hero-worship and debunking. He based his work on the latest edition of the Washington papers, which now include virtually every scrap of written information available except for his last three years as commander of the Continental Army and the second presidential

This gave everyone motivation to let themselves be heard and say whatever it was that was on their mind. This was what American life at the time was all about, and it was through American Literature that they were able to do so. Transcendentalism brought upon a literary era that encouraged the succeeding eras of literature to define American Literature. Realism was a literary period in American history that came

" To quote the Encyclopedia of World Biography's entry on Thomas Paine (2004) "his contributions included an attack on slavery and the slave trade. His literary eloquence received recognition with the appearance of his 79-page pamphlet titled Common Sense (1776). Here was a powerful exhortation for immediate independence. Americans had been quarreling with Parliament; Paine now redirected their case toward monarchy and to George III himself -- a 'hardened, sullen tempered

Largely, this sense of solidarity with the U.S. And a Western Bloc translated into practical reality in the Cold War and has lasted into the present period of the War on Terrorism. This has however not been without exception. During the Reagan years, Canadians were not as much onboard with the pro-U.S. line as leaders such as Britain's Margaret Thatcher. However, doubts such as have been entertained above have had