The First President
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2020
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
George. Where did it all go wrong?
George Washington could have had a comfortable career as a loyal member of HIs Majesty's Virginia militia and colonial grandee. But no, he had to go and roll the dice.
I am thrilled in this episode to be talking to historian Alexis Coe about her new biography of Washington. She has a fresh take on the first President, but no less scholarly for that.
Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down - even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone, Dan Snow here. I'm embarking on an epic road trip of England and I'm taking the podcast with me. |
| 0:06.5 | We're covering over 500 miles and 1 million years of English history, |
| 0:11.5 | stopping at the places that tell the incredible story of this country. |
| 0:18.0 | From the south coast where the Romans arrived on Britain's rugged shores |
| 0:23.5 | to the nuclear defence bunkers of the northeast. |
| 0:27.5 | We're going to hear about the monks, the rulers, bloody battles, murder and mayhem. |
| 0:33.0 | Dan Snow's history is the best place to go up close to history. |
| 0:36.0 | My story of England's series starts on Monday the 22nd of May. |
| 0:48.0 | Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. |
| 0:51.0 | I've got a treat for you today because we're talking about one of the most remarkable men in British. |
| 0:57.0 | And US history. He's going to call George Washington. You may have heard of him. |
| 1:01.5 | A wonderful historian, Alexis Coe, has just written a new biography. |
| 1:06.0 | It is called, you never forget your first biography of George Washington. |
| 1:10.0 | Refined to the fact that he was of course the first president of the United States of America. |
| 1:14.0 | This was frankly not one of his most important positions. |
| 1:16.5 | He was a reasonably competent commander of the Virginia militia serving under George the Second and George the Third. |
| 1:23.0 | I like to think those were the glory days really of George Washington's career. |
| 1:27.5 | Went a bit pear-shaped later on as we might say in Britain. |
| 1:30.5 | He flirted with Sedition, with outright treachery, rebellion. |
| 1:35.0 | He went on to lead a reasonably successful, you've got to give him this attempt to drive British rule out of the 13 colonies. |
| 1:41.5 | Not all the colonies on the Atlantic course. |
| 1:43.0 | I had to see the Canadian colonies maintain the sense to stick with the Brits, give him another century or two. |
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