'''George Washington''' '''(February 22, 1732 - December 14, 1799)''' was the unanimously elected 1st President of the [[United States of America]] and the Commander-in-Chief in the [[Revolutionary War]].<ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gw1.html</ref> He was also a devout [[Christian]], with his adopted daughter once stating that "if you question Washington's faith, you may as well question whether or not he was a patriot."<ref>http://www.christiananswers.net/q-wall/wal-g011.html</ref>
Washington is perhaps the only person other than [[Jesus]] to decline such enormous worldly power by first refusing to become a military dictator or king and then by voluntarily stepping aside as the leader of a prosperous nation. His precedent was voluntarily followed for 140 years. Towards that end, he sought to emulate the model of the citizen-soldier set by the Greek Roman leader [[CincinattusCincinatus]], a comparison that is truly testament to Washington's greatness, and one that drew worldwide attention and acclaim, even in England, the nation he defeated.<ref>For Lord Byron's poem on the subject, hailing Washington as "the first, the last, the best, the Cincinnatus of the West," see http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/2001/byron0101.html.</ref> The archetype of Washington as the citizen-soldier has become part of America's collective idealization of citizenship, and is immortalized in [[New York city| New York city's]] [[Washington Square Arch]], which depicts Washington the soldier on the left, and Washington the statesman on the right.<ref>For photographic images, see http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GV/GV046WashingtonSquareArch.htm</ref>
He was born on February 22, 1732 to Augustine and Mary Washington. <ref> [[Encyclopedia of Presidents, George Washington]], Zachary Kent, Children's Press, 1986. </ref>