George Washington learned a lot while serving in the Colonial British army during the French and Indian Wars. He learned the tactics — more importantly their tactics — and strategy. How to lead troops and how to pick one’s battles. His noble British supporters could not have known that one day Washington would take the sum of his knowledge in backing the colonists’ cause for independence against the British. That Washington would, in a single, militarily insignificant raid reverse the flagging fortunes of the rebels. Or that in part due to his victory he would be elected as the first leader of the independent nation.

On this day, April 30, in 1789 on the balcony of the Federal Hall in New York’s Wall Street, George Washington took the oath of office. He ran unopposed – his notable victories and heavy involvement in writing the U.S. Constitution made people actively call for his presidency, although Washington himself did not seek office and agreed only somewhat reluctantly.

Out of all the Washington stories, likely the most well-known is of his confession to having chopped down a cherry tree — “I can’t tell a lie.” The apocryphal story came first from Parson Weems, in his book The Life of Washington, published in 1800. Weems claimed to have gotten the story from “an aged lady, who was a distant relative, and, when a girl, spent much of her time in the family”, but no subsequent research has been able to verify the veracity of that story.