IN: George Washington (February 22, 1732 - December 14, 1799) was an American statesman and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and later presided over the 1787 convention that drafted the United States Constitution. As a driving force behind the nation's establishment he came to be known as the "father of the country," both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited.

George Washington was the first child of Augustine Washington and his second wife Mary Ball Washington, born on their Popes Creek Estate near Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was born on February 11, 1731, according to the Julian calendar and Annunciation Style of enumerating years then in use in the British Empire. The Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22, 1732.  Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave, England. His great-grandfather John Washington immigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, George's father Augustine. Augustine was a tobacco planter who also tried his hand at iron manufacturing, and later he was the Justice of the Westmoreland County Court. In Washington's youth, his family was moderately prosperous and considered members of Virginia's "country level gentry" of "middling rank," rather than one of the leading wealthy planter elite families. His wife Sally was also a friend of Washington and an early romantic interest, and maintained correspondence when she moved to England with her father, but most of the letters were intercepted by the British during the war.  Lawrence Washington inherited a plantation from their father on the Potomac River at Little Hunting Creek which he named Mount Vernon in honor of his commanding officer Vice Admiral Edward Vernon. Washington inherited Ferry Farm upon his father's death and eventually acquired Mount Vernon after Lawrence's death.  The death of his father prevented Washington from an education at England's Appleby Grammar School such as his older brothers had received. He achieved the equivalent of an elementary school education from a variety of tutors, as well as from a school run by an Anglican clergyman in or near Fredericksburg. His education totaled seven or eight years, while he lived with relatives at various places that included the Westmoreland and the Chotank regions of Virginia, as well as Ferry Farm and Mount Vernon. He was trained in mathematics, trigonometry, and surveying that developed a natural talent of draftsmanship and map making. He was also an avid reader and purchased books on military affairs, agriculture, and history, as well as the popular novels of his times. There was talk of securing an appointment for him in the Royal Navy when he was 15, but it was dropped when his widowed mother objected.  In 1751, Washington traveled with Lawrence to Barbados (his only trip abroad) in the hope that the climate would be beneficial to Lawrence's declining health, as he was suffering from tuberculosis. Washington contracted smallpox during the trip, which left his face slightly scarred but immunized him against future exposures to the disease. Lawrence's health failed to improve, and he returned to Mount Vernon where he died in the summer of 1752. His position as Adjutant General (militia leader) of Virginia was divided into four district offices after his death, and Washington was appointed by Governor Dinwiddie as one of the four district adjutants in February 1753, with the rank of major in the Virginia militia. He also became a freemason while in Fredericksburg during this period, although his involvement was minimal.

Where was he born?

OUT: birth date of February 22, 1732.


IN: Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton, FBA (15 January 1914 - 26 January 2003), was a British historian of early modern Britain and Nazi Germany. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Trevor-Roper was made a life peer in 1979 on the recommendation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, choosing the title Baron Dacre of Glanton. Trevor-Roper was a polemicist and essayist on a wide range of historical topics, but particularly England in the 16th and 17th centuries and Nazi Germany.

A notable thesis propagated by Trevor-Roper was the "general crisis of the 17th century". He argued that the middle years of the 17th century in Western Europe saw a widespread break-down in politics, economics and society caused by demographic, social, religious, economic and political problems. In this "general crisis," various events, such as the English Civil War, the Fronde in France, the climax of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, troubles in the Netherlands, and revolts against the Spanish Crown in Portugal, Naples and Catalonia, were all manifestations of the same problems. The most important causes of the "general crisis" in Trevor-Roper's opinion were conflicts between "Court" and "Country"; that is between the increasingly powerful centralizing, bureaucratic, sovereign princely states, represented by the Court, and the traditional, regional, land-based aristocracy and gentry, representing the country. In addition, he said that the religious and intellectual changes introduced by the Reformation and the Renaissance were important secondary causes of the "general crisis."  The "general crisis" thesis generated controversy between supporters of this theory, and those, such as the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who agreed with him that there was a "general crisis," but saw the problems of 17th century Europe as more economic in origin than Trevor-Roper would allow. A third faction denied that there was any "general crisis," for example the Dutch historian Ivo Schoffer, the Danish historian Niels Steengsgaard, and the Soviet historian A. D. Lublinskaya. Trevor-Roper's "general crisis" thesis provoked much discussion, and led experts in 17th century history such as Roland Mousnier, J. H. Elliott, Lawrence Stone, E. H. Kossmann, Eric Hobsbawm and J. H. Hexter to become advocates of the pros and cons of the theory.  At times the discussion became quite heated; the Italian Marxist historian Rosario Villari, speaking of the work of Trevor-Roper and Mousnier, claimed that: "The hypothesis of imbalance between bureaucratic expansion and the needs of the state is too vague to be plausible, and rests on inflated rhetoric, typical of a certain type of political conservative, rather than on effective analysis." Villari accused Trevor-Roper of downgrading the importance of what Villari called the English Revolution (the usual Marxist term for the English Civil War), and insisted that the "general crisis" was part of a Europe-wide revolutionary movement. Another Marxist critic of Trevor-Roper the Soviet historian A. D. Lublinskaya attacked the concept of a conflict between "Court" and "Country" as fiction, arguing there was no "general crisis;" instead she maintained that the so-called "general crisis" was merely the emergence of capitalism.

What experts did it provoke?

OUT:
Roland Mousnier, J. H. Elliott, Lawrence Stone, E. H. Kossmann, Eric Hobsbawm and J. H. Hexter