George Washington was born on February 22, 1732,^[a] at Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia.^[3] He was the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington.^[4] His father was a justice of the peace and a prominent public figure who had four additional children from his first marriage to Jane Butler.^[5] Washington was not close to his father and rarely mentioned him in later years; he had a fractious relationship with his mother.^[6] Among his siblings, he was particularly close to his older half-brother Lawrence.^[7]

Born in the Colony of Virginia, Washington became the commander of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War (1754–1763). He was later elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, and opposed the perceived oppression of the American colonists by the British Crown. When the American Revolutionary War against the British began in 1775, Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. He directed a poorly organized and equipped force against disciplined British troops. Washington and his army achieved an early victory at the Siege of Boston in March 1776 but were forced to retreat from New York City in November. Washington crossed the Delaware River and won the battles of Trenton in late 1776 and Princeton in early 1777, then lost the battles of Brandywine and Germantown later that year. He faced criticism of his command, low troop morale, and a lack of provisions for his forces as the war continued. Ultimately Washington led a combined French and American force to a decisive victory over the British at Yorktown in 1781. In the resulting Treaty of Paris in 1783, the British acknowledged the sovereign independence of the United States. Washington then served as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which drafted the current Constitution of the United States.