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George Washington was aFounding Father and the firstpresident of the United States. Born inVirginia, he opposed the perceived oppression of the American colonists by theBritish Crown and wascommander-in-chief of the Continental Army during theAmerican Revolutionary War. After being forced toretreat from New York City, hecrossed the Delaware River and won the battles ofTrenton andPrinceton. Washington led a decisive victory atYorktown, then served as president of theConstitutional Convention that drafted theUS Constitution. As president, he set precedents for theoffice of president, such asrepublicanism, apeaceful transition, and thetwo-term tradition.Washington owned many slaves but opposed the practice near the end of his life. His image is an icon ofAmerican culture and hehas been extensively memorialized. In both popular and scholarly polls, he is consistently considered one of the greatest presidents in American history. (Full article...)

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Douglas at the 2016 Olympic Games

... that gymnastGabby Douglas(pictured) has aBarbie doll modeled after her?
... that one of former British prime ministerRishi Sunak's favourite books is the 1988 romanceRivals?
... that whenMatthew Wild directed Wagner'sTannhäuser, he made its main character gay?
... that aftera tornado strike at a St. Louis–area Amazon warehouse killed six workers, the rebuilt warehouse still had no proper storm shelter?
... that Jamaican-Welsh noblewomanJustina Jeffreys was the inspiration for the character of Anthelia in the 1817 novelMelincourt?
... thatGrand Theft Auto V is a popularvideo game in North Korea?
... thatFrank Page's sons stole his corpse after he died, leaving their stepmother to bury an empty casket?
... that following the sinking ofHNLMSKortenaer, an officer responded to ethnic tensions on thelifeboats by beating his subordinates with a paddle?
... that after playing just one game,Michael Basinger retired from theNFL and became a country music performer?

In the news

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS

Astronomers announce the discovery of3I/ATLAS(pictured), aninterstellar object passing through theSolar System.
TheVera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile releases thefirst light images from its new8.4-metre (28 ft) telescope.
In basketball, theOklahoma City Thunder defeat theIndiana Pacers to winthe NBA Finals.
An attack on aGreek Orthodox church inDamascus, Syria, kills at least 25 people.
The United States conductsmilitary strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran.

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On this day

July 4:Independence Day in the United States (1776);Republic Day in the Philippines (1946);Liberation Day in Rwanda (1994)

The Brazilian cruiserBahia

1837 – TheGrand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway withsteam traction, opened betweenBirmingham andNewton Junction.
1918 –World War I:Allied forces led by the Australian generalJohn Monash won theBattle of Hamel, demonstrating the effectiveness ofcombined-arms techniques intrench warfare.
1941 –German AB-Aktion in Poland: After capturingLwów, the Nazisexecuted professors of theUniversity of Lwów along with their families.
1945 – The Brazilian cruiserBahia(pictured) was accidentally sunk by one of its own crewmen, killing more than 300 people.
1998 – Themonster moviePulgasari, the most-widely-seen North Korean film ever made, premiered in Tokyo, Japan.

Usama ibn Munqidh (b. 1095)
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (b. 1715)
Andre Spitzer (b. 1945)
Swastima Khadka (b. 1995)

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Aerial view ofGuam on 13 November 1944

TheUnited States Navy began building aseries of battlecruisers in the 1920s, more than a decade after their slower and less heavily armedarmored cruisers had been rendered obsolete by theRoyal Navy'sInvincible-class battlecruisers. At first unconvinced of the importance of the superior speed of the British battlecruisers, the US Navy changed its position after evaluating the new type of ship in fleet exercises andNaval War College wargames, and after the Japanese acquisition of fourKongō-class battlecruisers in the early 1910s. When Congress authorized a large naval building program in 1916, sixLexington-class battlecruisers were included. None were completed before the arms-limitingWashington Naval Treaty was ratified in 1922. Two ships in theAlaska class were commissioned in time to serve during the last year of World War II but were decommissioned two years after the war. (Full list...)

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Mount Rushmore National Memorial is centered on acolossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore in theBlack Hills nearKeystone, South Dakota. SculptorGutzon Borglum created the sculpture's design and oversaw the project's execution from 1927 to 1941 with the help of his son,Lincoln Borglum. The sculpture features the 60-foot-tall (18 m) heads of fourUnited States Presidents recommended by Borglum:George Washington (1732–1799),Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826),Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) andAbraham Lincoln (1809–1865), chosen to represent the nation's birth, growth, development and preservation, respectively.

Photograph credit:Thomas Wolf

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