Western Culture Global Presents

The Top 100 Heroes of Western Culture
These individuals have most contributed to replacing ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization, disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty with abundance, and despair with happiness.



#13: George Washington (1732-1799)

George Washington (1732-1799) was the first president of the United States and led the Continental Army to victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War.

After the war, Washington could have easily seized control of the government with his army and made himself King. Instead, he retired to his plantation, prompting an incredulous King George III to state, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."

Washington did not seize power ultimately because he was a man of the Enlightenment; he believed that government should not be the master of the citizens but their servant by restricting its role to the protection of individual rights.

As first president, Washington continued to uphold this belief by successfully battling those who wanted the presidency to be a quasi-king position. He also voluntarily restricted his service to two terms, thus ensuring that he would not die in office which he feared would set a dangerous precedent.

Further, he brilliantly succeeded in making the presidency respectable and trustworthy to the American people, thus cementing their belief and confidence in the new, unprecedented form of government. Nearly every American president since Washington has at least attempted to live up to the honorable standards he established.

Without the ideas and extraordinary character of George Washington, the United States -- history's greatest nation -- would have likely faltered quickly or never been born at all.


Go to #14: Roger Bacon


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