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Synonyms for words commonly used in student's writing

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SYNONYMS FOR WORDS COMMONLY USED IN STUDENT'S WRITINGS

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Cyrus the Great (The Story Of Human Rights).mp4

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Get dropped anywhere from the busy streets of New York to the beautiful beaches of Bali.
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GeoGuessr is a geography game which takes you on a journey around the world and challenges your ability to recognize your surroundings.

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Republics of Rome & United States Executive Branch function: carry out laws REPUBLIC res publica - latin meaning "public affairs" government in which power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them Senatus Populusque Romanus The Senate of

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One of our first 360 videos was filmed in New York a few years ago. Earlier we published grand tour of Manhattan, which includes 30 photopanoramas. Now we present new video of New York, with new cityscape.

New York is the most famous city of the USA, and Manhattan is the most famous part of New York. It all started 400 years ago when the most famous and profitable in human history real estate deal was made: the Native Americans sold this 'not so useful' piece of land to Europeans for 24 dollars.

Since that time the island has changed dramatically. For 24 dollars one can probably buy a ticket to the Empire State Building.

Present day Manhattan is the most populated island on Earth. The land itself costs about 40 billion US dollars, and the cost of the entire Manhattan, including its real estate, reaches over 3 trillion US dollars.

This remarkable part of New York City is best to be discovered on foot - not only because of the infamous New York traffic or cost of parking in New York. There is a joke in New York that only wasteful people can afford driving in New York, because the time one spends on finding a parking spot sometimes equals the time it takes to drive from one side of Manhattan to another.

New York is known to be a financial capital of the world, and the island of Manhattan is where all the banks, offices, largest insurance companies and corporations are located - literally one on top of another. Basically the rest of New York, and eventually, the rest of the United States, work for Manhattan, making sure that this gigantic "city inside of the city" continues its mission - processing the wealth of the whole world.

Besides a large number of museums, almost every building in Manhattan has a historical value. Old buildings harmoniously coexist with the best examples of the modern architecture. Most famous New York attractions are located in Manhattan, including Empire State Building mentioned above, Central Park and Times Square. There is also colorful China Town and bright Broadway - they are all located on this island. It is a shame not to bring a photo of Manhattan from your trip to New York!

Authors of the video: Dmitry Moiseenko and Ivan Roslyakov

30 December 2015

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One of our first 360 videos was filmed in New York a few years ago. Earlier we published grand tour of Manhattan, which includes 30 photopanoramas. Now we present new video of New York, with new cityscape. New York is the most famous city of the USA, and Manhattan is the most famous part of New York.

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Overview and HistoryAll roads lead to Rome, the capital of Italy, current football world champions, where western civilization really got cookin' and Christianity gained its foothold on an empire.According to legend, the city was founded on the Palatine Hill by Romulus and Remus, just after they finished wiping wolf's milk from their lips. Romulus killed his brother Remus in a fight over who had the right to name the city, hence "Rome" and not "Remo". He attained divine status after his death, being given the name "Quirinus," the root of which you can see in the Quirinale Palace.The Quirinale Palace is the home of the President of the Italian Republic. Its fountain has two ancient statues of Castor and Pollux, sons of Zeus, the famous twins of the Gemini constellation.Rome is famous for its seven hills: Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal, Viminal. Vatican City is on Vatican Hill which is not one of the seven hills. It's its own state, too, not technically under the authority of Italy. It's also the smallest country in the world.Within Vatican City you can find the Pope of course, the Basilica of St. Peter and also Michaelangelo's masterpiece -- the painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This painting is a fresco, which means the paint is part of the actual plaster. The painter mixes plaster and pigment at the same time and had to finish the work before the plaster dried, and by the way he was laying on his back to do it. Call me crazy but I think the requirements for being an artist have declined in their stringency of late. Vatican City has an insane amount of pure-gold artwork as well.Since Rome predates the Christian era, you will find many examples of gods and goddesses who were worshipped in the Pantheon, or, "Temple to All the Gods." This is the oldest domed building still standing in Rome, dating to 35 B.C and first reconstructed in 126 A.D. It's been in continuous use since it was built, and has been a Catholic church since 700 A.D.Students of history may also enjoy the Roman Forum, around which the ancient city first developed. This area included the Senate and Republican government, and a central marketplace where everyone came for news, supplies, gossip and everything else. It's between Palatine hill and Capitoline hills, a swampy spot that was drained during the Forum's construction. Doomed to repeat history, or fascinated by its roots? Take your pick.All roads lead to Rome except this one, it leads to the Colosseum. Forget Youtube, Netflix and getting laid. REAL entertainment comes from the Colosseum. Do you know why we have popcorn and movies today? Because first they had Bread and circus at the Colosseum, baby! Fake pirate battles in an ocean of real blood! Two vs. one gladiator ambushing with Neptune's tridents and deadly spiked nets! Here's the interior.If this is what you see around you, you'd better hope to find a sharp sword in your hand to go with it.Now nevermind all that old stuff, welcome to the Hippodrome, race fans! Besides being the coolest panorama on the whole site, the Circus Maximus was where they had the chariot races and judges who knew how to take a bribe for pole position.But let's zoom back out for a second. Rome is located on the Tiber river. Crossing the Tiber are many bridges dating back several centuries, for instance Ponte Cavour, Ponte Umberto, and the Saint Angelo bridge.Rome offers an enviable array of Renaissance and Baroque architecture due to its luck; like Prague and only a few other cities, it escaped major damage during WWII.Now here are a few little things to get you there so you can investigate the more than 2500 years of history which continue to seep into out modern times.Getting ThereFiumicino Airport provides international access for flights into Italy. You can connect to it by bus, train or taxi. The train takes about thirty minutes and costs five euro or so.There's a smaller airport called Ciampino, which handles mostly charter flights, and has a bus line running to meet the Metro.TransportationThe historic center of Rome is less than two miles from the central Colosseum and Piazza di Spagna, so you might as well walk there. The bus network is very extensive but the Metro is probably easier to get your head around. It's called the Metropolitana and it makes a loop around, rather than through, the city. Basic tickets cost one euro. Night buses run between midnight and four am when the metro stops.You can also hop onto one of the many tourist buses for a guided ride around Rome. These prices are a lot higher than the metro, but it's an activity more than just a ride.Now if you really want to do as the Romans do, rent yourself a Vespa scooter and drive it one-handed, shouting.People and CultureYou don't have to have a lot of money to have good style. That's Italian culture in a word.I'll go up against Paris right here and say that Italians have style all sewn up. Rocking a scooter in a red dress and stiletto heels? Come on.Here are a few piquant expressions which further the idea:"Finish that pasta so Nonna doesn't have to put it away.""It's sugar sweet and as big as your hand.""People do not age at the table."And concerning the stereotype that Italians all talk with their hands:"Mathematics is not a matter of opinion."Just imagine how funny it was, the first time that one sprung out.Things to do & RecommendationsFirst of all, go back and see all the panoramas in the top section. After you've been through the places and back, try these:Modern art at Gallery Nuovo Pesa.Worm through the Aseq esoteric library on your way to Limonaia Cafeteria for lunch.After lunch, pick up a few things at the most popular market in Rome, Piazza Vittorio.Be glad you're there and not eating only memories in the Traianei Market ancient Roman market.Some other gems in the city: the Trevi Fountain and its marketplaceFor a little more religious history, visit the 18th century Rococo style Plaza of St. Ignacio. Saint Ignacio was the founder of the Jesuits or Society of Jesus, the largest male religious order in the Catholic church.There are also some beautiful green spaces in Rome, like the historic park Il Pincio and Villa Borghese parks. Look at those cherry blossoms!For music lovers, the Auditorium is the main music hall in Rome.Text by Steve Smith.

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Overview and HistoryAll roads lead to Rome, the capital of Italy, current football world champions, where western civilization really got cookin' and Christianity gained its foothold on an empire.According to legend, the city was founded on the Palatine Hill by Romulus and Remus, just after they finished wiping wolf's milk from their lips.

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The United States Capitol Complex - Virtually Anywhere

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Capitol tour, a virtual tour of the US Capitol building. Includes virtual tours of US Botanic Garden, the Capitol grounds, Library of Congress, and more.

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When filming picturesque places all over our planet AirPano doesn't forget its wonderful inhabitants. Penguins, brown bears and giant pandas, sharks and other fish became subjects of our panoramas. In Cuba we were able to swim with a big jellyfish and it was really a fascinating performance. Therefore, when I found out that in Palau there is a whole lake of jellyfish, I wanted to go there immediately.

From this moment adventures turning into difficulties began: as if some forces found out about my plans and decided to play a game of chess, with me as a figure on the board. "One stop forward - to steps back", and in this way was the whole period of planning to photo the jellyfish. Let's go through it step by step.

The island based government of Palau is situated in the Pacific Ocean, about 800 km far from the Philippines and Indonesia. It is a long way to go, but my dream of going there was broken by another reason. While gathering information for the journey I found out that this lake doesn't exist anymore. To be correct, the lake itself is still there, but the fragile environment was destroyed by tourists that were using sun protection cream and went in the water with it. The cream was poisonous to the jellyfish. In order to save the remaining representatives of nature the lake was closed for visitors.

This would have been a good reason to back off and cancel the trip, but no way! Coincidentally I found out that there is a similar lake in Indonesia and we were already planning to go to Raja Ampat a couple of weeks later. My dream was coming true again. But nobody knows where this lake is and its coordinates have to be discovered before the trip. The thing is that Raja Ampat is a very inconvenient place for travelling: the only connection between a thousand islands is by boat (there are no helicopters or seaplanes). In the neighboring West Papua live at least a hundred of tribes that haven't seen civilization and somewhere you may come across cannibalism.

Looking up the info in the Internet was fruitful: I managed to find the works of Indonesian scientists that described three jellyfish lakes that were luckily situated not far from the filming destination of AirPano.

But later something went wrong again. The boat that we booked for making the underwater footage was burned! Nevertheless, the departure is almost near and we have to find another vessel.

I found out about this accident by an unbelievable and lucky coincidence: during the Dive Show exhibition in Moscow the participants from Indonesia were watching the burning of the boat at the time, when I was walking by their stand.

Later AirPano photo crew found the new vessel and here we are in Indonesia.

When we finally had time to visit the lakes (at least one of them!), it became impossible: we were told that there are no jellyfish there at all. Could have the tourists killed them like it was in Papua? Good thing that we didn't come here only for the lakes. But the high forces don't allow me to forget about my plans: in the hotel a guide suddenly tells me about a place, where there are a lot of jellyfish. Technically it was not a lake, but a small gulf in a snaky bank line of the island, which did not make the acquaintance with the sea inhabitants less interesting.

A small, but not very important obstacle is the lack of information n when the jellyfish appear: the scientist wrote that they could be seen in midday, while the guide insisted that the creatures don't like sunlight. We went to the gulf in the second part of the day and were fortunate: the water here was of yellow-green color, visibility very bad, so in the daytime this place was absolutely not interesting. But near the evening the jellyfish start coming up from the depths and it is worth seeing. There are a lot of them, as if they compile a huge sphere that takes over the whole territory.

The jellyfish are not a good company for a diver. Despite the fact that descending into the porridge of jellyfish is not dangerous, being touched on sensitive parts of the body like the neck or lips is rather painful.

The first day was reconnaissance: I made only photos. Later we returned there with my colleagues to make a 360°-video shoot like we planned.

If you watched this game of chess, then it is obvious that I won. But the enemy still had something in his sleeve: the captain decided to take us to "another jellyfish gulf". Good thing I had the correct coordinates in my phone.

All in all, a thousand of incidents and insistence and the panoramic footage of the basin full of jellyfish is complete!

Video by Alexey Tishchenko. Photos by Oleg Gaponyuk. Video stitching by Ivan Roslyakov

18 June 2018

Photogallery

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When filming picturesque places all over our planet AirPano doesn't forget its wonderful inhabitants. Penguins, bears, sharks have been filmed. Recently we managed to dive into a gulf of thousands of jellyfish. Today we present 360 video of this fantastic place...

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The French and Indian War, also called the Seven Years' War in Europe and the Great War for Empire by some historians, decisively shaped American history and changed the map of North America. Scroll through the timeline to read highlights of some of the events and battles that led to the greatest loss of life on American soil in the 18th century. Many of these places mentioned can still be visited today.

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The French and Indian War, also called the Seven Years' War in Europe and the Great War for Empire by some historians, decisively shaped American history and changed the map of North America. Scroll through the timeline to read highlights of some of the events and battles that led to the greatest loss of life on American soil in the 18th century.

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© 2019 Shmoop University, Inc. All rights reserved.

In A Nutshell

By the mid-1700s, France and Britain were both playing chicken over who was going to control the major trade routes and Native American alliances that were possible in central North America.

France was all like, "I've got the Mississippi River Valley and the Great Lakes." Great Britain, never one to stand down from a fight, puffed out its chest and said, "Oh yeah? Well, I've got the Eastern Seaboard and the most direct route to the ocean. So there."

While they duked it out over who was the most powerful, several Native American tribes tried to get in on the fight. As was typical for the Native Americans around this time, though, they were mostly ignored-until Britain or France needed their help, of course.

At this point, the Native Americans knew that they couldn't make a military stand on their own against either European power, so their best shot was to ally with the side they thought would secure a better future for them.

So, three great empires-France, Great Britain, and the Iroquois League-clashed in the backcountry of Pennsylvania in a war fought between 1755 and 1760 that largely determined the future of the North American continent.

Enter: The French and Indian War. Who will win control of the eastern U.S.?

The United States wasn't predestined to become the nation that it did-a diverse and dynamic, English-speaking, continent-spanning power on the world stage.

Claims of Manifest Destiny notwithstanding, things could've easily turned out quite differently. America became the nation that it is only because its history unfolded in a particular way-because certain crucial events, large and small, occurred at specific times and places. The French and Indian War, though nearly forgotten today, was one of those large events. The war, fought when America was still little more than a rustic outpost on the far periphery of the British Empire, made everything that happened after possible.

If the French and Indian War had unfolded along a slightly different path-and there were many times when it easily could have-the United States as we know it probably wouldn't exist.

If the war had unfolded differently, you may have ended up reading this in French, not English...or maybe you'd be reading it in Mohawk. You might now need a passport to cross from Pennsylvania into Ohio. You might now celebrate Tanaghrisson's or Pontiac's birthday, rather than George Washington's, as a national holiday. Everything would be different.

On a fateful spring day in 1754, a young military officer named George Washington led his regiment of Virginia provincials into battle against French troops near the Forks of the Ohio River, in the wilds of western Pennsylvania. They didn't know it, but the destiny of America hung in the balance.

© 2019 Shmoop University. All rights reserved.We speak student®

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© 2019 Shmoop University, Inc. All rights reserved. By the mid-1700s, France and Britain were both playing chicken over who was going to control the major trade routes and Native American alliances that were possible in central North America. France was all like, "I've got the Mississippi River Valley and the Great Lakes."

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On the night of May 27, 1754, Lt. Col. George Washington led a party of Virginia soldiers out of an encampment in the Ohio Valley. The conditions were horrid-a night "as black as pitch," as the young commander recorded in his journal. An unceasing rain made the dark woods even more impervious to the soldiers and warriors.

Washington was only 22 years old, his mouth still full of teeth. The uniform he wore was likely a woolen officer's coat showing his allegiance to the British empire-he was a loyal subject of King George II. He and his Virginia Regiment of a little over 100 effective soldiers were the tip of His Majesty's spear in North America. Their assignment: to finish building a fort that would anchor Britain's control over the Ohio Valley.

But as Washington and his men marched westward over the Appalachian Mountains, they received stunning news: The French had already captured their intended destination, known as Trent's Fort. Hundreds of French troops had aimed over a dozen cannons at the British soldiers stationed there and forced their surrender.

By May 24, Washington had encamped at the Great Meadows, one of the few open clearings amid the dark Appalachian woods. There he received word from a man named Tanaghrisson, an Ohio Iroquois, that an army of French soldiers was coming to attack his men. French tracks were spotted only five miles from the camp, and Washington sent out 75 of his best soldiers to search for the French party. Then his Indian allies found the spot where the French were camping, hidden in a glen near the crest of a mountain ridge.

On May 27, the men who remained with Washington-a small party of 40 British soldiers and perhaps seven or eight Ohio Iroquois allies-marched five miles and climbed 700 feet up the steep eastern face of Chestnut Ridge. Seven soldiers got lost as they stumbled in the rain over the ridgeline's many rocks, spurs and draws. By the time the remaining 33 men crested the ridge, they were exhausted and soaked.

As the sun began to rise, the soldiers struggled to operate their muskets amid the lingering dampness. It was around 7 a.m. on May 28 when the Virginians, advancing in single file, came to the rocky precipice overlooking the French camp. Washington was at the head of the column and the first to spot the French who, he later reported, scrambled for their muskets.

The battle lasted only 15 minutes. At least ten French soldiers fell, most of them killed by Washington's Indian allies. One of those dead Frenchmen was the party's commander, Ensign Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville. The mountain glen was a macabre scene of unburied and scalped French corpses, with a Frenchman's decapitated head stuck upon a pole.

Historians have long identified this skirmish in the woods as the spark that ignited the French and Indian War. But there's an untold dimension to this story, as I discovered several years ago, digging through colonial papers in the British National Archives. This evidence, previously unreported, suggests that the man who would become America's first president might have been more complicated a leader-and more culpable for starting a seven-year-long global war-than history has led us to believe.

* * *

The French and Indian War is one of those conflicts we learned about in history classes, but we tend to be hazy on the details. That's partly because it all took place a generation before the Revolutionary War, a time most Americans don't think much about. It's also because the name is a bit confusing: It was a conflict between British and French colonists, with Indian nations as allies on both sides. Back then, the colonists on the Atlantic seaboard were still loyal to Britain. French influence extended far inland, and it was starting to expand into the Ohio Valley, edging into Pennsylvania. The British had more people and resources, but the French had access to important waterways, including the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. As the French philosopher Voltaire wrote around the time of the Jumonville affair: "So complicated are the political interests of the present times that a shot fired in America shall be the signal for setting all Europe together by the ears."

At that time, the Indians in the Ohio Valley were still independent and powerful, and both sides needed them as military and trading partners. The French had cultivated a broad network of Indian alliances by the 1740s. In response, the British tried to inflate the power of the Six Nations-the Iroquois Confederacy that dominated much of the Northeast. In particular, they elevated an Ohio Iroquois leader named Tanaghrisson, treating him as a spokesman for all the Ohio nations. The British dubbed Tanaghrisson the "Half King." Yet he didn't actually speak for all the Ohio Indians. He'd come on the scene only in the late 1740s and his role was never recognized by the French, who thought him "more English than the English."

In the summer of 1753, the French started acting more brazenly. They sent 2,600 soldiers into the region, building a fort on the shore of Lake Erie and another at the headwaters of nearby Le-Boeuf Creek. Both the British officials in Virginia and their Indian allies in Ohio were alarmed.

That's when Washington walked onto the stage of history. At the end of 1753, Virginia governor Robert Dinwiddie asked him to lead a diplomatic expedition to warn the French to leave their forts. Washington had been in the militia less than a year, but he'd worked as a surveyor starting at the age of 16, and the governor knew this experience would help him navigate the frontier as he led the 500-mile trek from Williamsburg, Virginia, to Fort LeBoeuf.

The group reached Fort Le-Boeuf on December 11, 1753, accompanied by Tanaghrisson and other Ohio Indians. The French commandant received the party with great civility, even sent them home with supplies, but he rebuffed Governor Dinwiddie's demands. Still, Washington's journey had allowed him to gather valuable intelligence: He'd learned that the French were assembling a flotilla of small boats to carry them to the Forks of the Ohio, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers met to form the Ohio River, and where the British planned to build a small but strategic fort.

After Washington returned, his journal of the expedition was published in Williamsburg and London, spreading the young officer's fame. In early 1754, Dinwiddie promoted him to second in command of the Virginia Regiment-and sent him back to the Ohio Valley, this time to complete the fort at the Forks of the Ohio. Although he wasn't instructed to start a war, he had the authority to restrain any French interlopers and, if necessary, "kill & destroy" them.

Following the May 28 battle, when French officials learned that Ensign Jumonville had been killed by British colonists and their Indian supporters, their anger boiled over. According to French accounts, Jumonville and his men were preparing to deliver a diplomatic summons to the British, not take up arms against them. In fact, they insisted, Jumonville had tried to get the British to stop firing so he could speak to them. One report even claimed that Jumonville had been shot through the head while one of his fellow soldiers was in the process of reading a message to the British. The French portrayed Washington's ambush as the brutal murder of a diplomatic official.

Some sources-including a British newspaper-reported that Tanaghrisson himself had killed Jumonville. One telling of that story, by a British deserter, added an especially brutal twist: As Jumonville lay wounded after the battle, Tanaghrisson approached him and remarked, " Tu n'es pas encore mort, mon père "-"You are not yet dead, my father." He lifted his tomahawk and planted the blade in Jumonville's skull.

Centuries later, it's still not clear who is to blame for the bloody incident. Had the French been planning to attack the British all along? Or had the British opened fire hastily, or been manipulated by their Indian allies? Dinwiddie, for his part, had always blamed his Indian allies for starting the whole thing, telling his superiors back in London: "This little Skirmish was by the Half-King & their Indians, we were as auxiliaries to them."

A few years ago, I was sitting in the sprawling reading room of the British National Archives in Kew. The enormous bound volume on the table before me was part of a collection called the Colonial Office papers. This trove of colonial documents included official correspondences, maps, legal and military records, and Indian treaties.

I was intrigued by the location and date of one document in particular: It was entitled "A Treaty with the Indians at Camp Mount Pleasant October 18th 1754." Camp Mount Pleasant was a British outpost along the upper Potomac River in what is now western Maryland. In the fall of 1754, a group of British Army officers gathered there with Ohio Iroquois, Delaware and Shawnee leaders to renew their alliance and hear their grievances. Through an interpreter, a British scribe recorded the Indians' speeches word-for-word with quill and ink over a total of ten pages.

One speech had been delivered by a man identified as a "Chief Warrior" of the Ohio Iroquois. The French had driven the chief warrior and his people from their lands in the Ohio Valley, and they were now living as refugees among the British. The chief warrior began bluntly, telling the British officers: "We are all Soldiers and Warriors. Some sharp words will now pass between us. We shall talk like drunken Men."

Those "sharp words" turned into an extended account of the major events that had brought them to their current crisis-from Washington's 1753 diplomatic mission to the French conquest of the Forks of the Ohio River and the Jumonville affair. Hidden in plain sight was a new document pertaining to none other than George Washington and the Indian allies who had supported him.

Not believing my good fortune, I went back to the existing histories and confirmed that this October 1754 treaty had never been transcribed, analyzed or even cited by previous scholars writing on Washington and the Jumonville affair. It provided a rare eyewitness account of the opening scenes of the French and Indian War.

Who was this "Chief Warrior"? The treaty minutes provide no clues, other than that he was known "to have a true Heart" to the British alliance. Perhaps the speaker was Kanuksusy, a Seneca man whom Washington had once described as a "great Warrior." Or perhaps it was Silver Heels, who went on to one of the most remarkable British military careers of any Indian warrior, fighting with distinction in the Ohio Valley, New York, South Carolina and even on the West Indies island of Martinique.

The chief warrior voiced his suspicion that "the King of England and the French King had made an Agreement to cut us off"-that both European powers were conspiring to divide and conquer the Indians. As the chief warrior told the British, certain events and revelations had "given us some Reason to suspect you."

The chief warrior then described his own involvement in the Jumonville affair. The young George Washington he described was neither a valiant hero nor a bloodthirsty aggressor. Instead, he was an earnest but headstrong 22-year-old who, simply put, wasn't very good at cultivating allies.

The chief warrior complained that after he and his fellow Ohio Iroquois escorted Washington from their encampment in Logstown to Fort LeBoeuf in 1753, Washington "left us there, came through the Woods, and never thought it worth his while to come to Logs Town, or near us and give us any Account of the Speeches that passed between him and the French at the Fort which he promised to do." Washington had seemed more interested in making his report to Governor Dinwiddie than cultivating Indian allies.

The chief warrior had also witnessed the French takeover of Trent's Fort in April 1754. He reported that the British had surrendered meekly in the face of 600 French marines and militia-the largest European military force that had yet been seen in the Ohio River Valley. But the chief warrior noted that Tanaghrisson, the "Half King," had tried to stir up conflict during the surrender, warning the French not to trespass on Ohio Iroquois lands, where he had given permission for the English to build a trading post. Tanaghrisson had even pushed a French officer, and "a Scuffle" ensued. If cooler heads had not prevailed, the chief warrior told the group, "they would not have left one Frenchman alive upon the spot."

This telling of the story offers an important new angle on the origins of the Jumonville affair. It indicates that the French had humiliated Tanaghrisson, dealing with him as an English puppet and exposing his lack of influence. After the incident, Tanaghrisson's band of 80 to 100 men, women and children had fled the area, taking refuge with their British allies to the east. Tanaghrisson had a vendetta against a particular French officer named Michel Pépin, also known as La Force. Only a few weeks earlier, La Force had spoken at Tanaghrisson's settlement of Logstown, threatening his band of Ohio Iroquois that "You have but a short Time to see the Sun, for in Twenty Days You and Your Brothers the English shall all die." By the end of May 1754, when Tanaghrisson reported to Washington that a French "armey" was on its way to "strike the first English they see," Tanaghrisson believed that the French-especially the feared La Force-were plotting to kill him and his followers.

The three parties met amid a perfect storm of misunderstandings. The Ohio Iroquois band believed they were being pursued by the French. The French considered themselves diplomats, delivering a summons to the British to leave French lands-much like the summons Washington had delivered to the French some months earlier. And the British were advancing with the information they'd gathered from Tanaghrisson and others, believing the French were coming for them with violent intentions.

When it comes to the battle itself, the chief warrior's account surpasses all other eyewitness accounts in its level of tactical detail. In particular, no other account provides as much insight on how Indian warriors guided the young Washington in his first combat action-an ambush. The Indians directed him to "go up the Hill, straight to the French where they were, not above fifty Yards off, when they must come in Sight of the French Camp below them."

While the warriors sent the Virginian toward the rocky precipice, the Indians descended into the hollow: "The Half King with his Warriors went to the left to intercept them if they should go that Way, and Monacatootha with another young Warrior Cherokee Jack went to the Right."

One line from the chief warrior's speech struck me above all others: "Col. Washington begun himself and fired and then his people." Washington himself always took responsibility for ordering his company to open fire, but the chief warrior's report takes this even further, claiming that Washington literally fired the first shot. Perhaps it was a signal to his soldiers and his Indian allies to commence the attack, or perhaps he was taking aim at a French adversary. Either way, if true, it heightens Washington's moral responsibility in the whole affair.

The chief warrior contended that the French traded volleys with the English, "two or three Fires of as many Pieces as would go off, being rainy Weather." The French "having taken to their Heels and running, happening to run the Way the Half King was with his Warriors, eight of them met with their Destiny by the Indian Tomayhawks." The stunned French survivors fled back in the opposite direction, only to run headlong into Monacatootha and Cherokee Jack, who presented the prisoners to Washington, adding that "we had blooded the Edge of his Hatchet a little."

One Frenchman, named Monceau, managed to slip into the woods and spread news of the skirmish. The rest were now prisoners huddled near the British, hoping that they would not be tomahawked. Three Virginians were wounded-a strong indication that the French had managed to return fire earlier in the battle. One Virginian had been killed.

The chief warrior, however, revealed what Washington failed to report about one of his casualties-that the Virginians "unluckily shot their own Man," who had gotten ahead of their lines in the chaos of battle.

The chief warrior's account mentions La Force numerous times, but never Ensign Jumonville-an omission that supports the notion that the Iroquois were more focused on the hated La Force. His account also says nothing of the French reading any summons. It does relate that the Half King angrily shouted at La Force: "You came after me to take my Life and my Children." He then raised his tomahawk over La Force, declaring, "Now I will let you see that the Six Nations can kill as well as the French." But according to the chief warrior, La Force took refuge behind Washington, who "interposed" and prevented his death.

Immediately following the skirmish, Tanaghrisson sent French scalps to various Native groups to announce his deed. But if Tanaghrisson had expected this to somehow galvanize Ohio Indians against the French and restore his own authority, he had woefully misjudged the geopolitics of the entire Ohio Valley. By 1754, Ohio Shawnees had already declared "perpetual war" against the English, while other Delaware and Iroquois bands were firmly committed to the French alliance.

The chief warrior's speech also described what happened after the battle. Washington and his men eventually returned to the Great Meadows, where they began building a fort. According to the chief warrior, Tanaghrisson had encouraged Washington to fortify elsewhere. No Indian warrior wanted to fight a European-style battle in what Tanaghrisson called "that little thing upon the Meadow." But Washington had few options.

On July 3, 1754, Fort Necessity, as it was called, was attacked by a group of 600 Frenchmen and about 100 of their Indian allies seeking vengeance. The group's commander, Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers, was Jumonville's older brother. Washington's side suffered severe casualties. The British accepted French terms for an honorable surrender of the post.

Or so they thought. Washington missed important language in the surrender document: It stated that Villiers and his men had acted only to avenge Jumonville's "assassination." In the pouring rain and darkness, Washington's translator provided a faulty translation of the document. Washington maintained that he never would have signed it had he known of that charge, but the political damage was done.

The Ohio Iroquois allies were absent for all of this; by that time, they had become thoroughly disappointed with their British allies. Following Washington's defeat at Fort Necessity, some Ohio Iroquois took refuge on the Pennsylvania frontier, while other prodigals returned to their French father in due time. The chief warrior left an unflattering portrait of Washington as a leader who "never consulted with us nor yet to take our Advice." Tanaghrisson also described Washington as a "good-natured man but had no Experience," complaining that the young Virginian "took upon him to command the Indians as his Slaves."

* * *

News of Washington's defeat broke like a thunderclap when it reached imperial officials in London in August 1754. The British government intervened by sending Maj. Gen. Edward Braddock with two regiments of regular troops to accomplish what the colonists could not. But Braddock requested that Washington serve as an aide.

In July 1755, Washington had the chance to reclaim his reputation when Braddock's expedition met with disaster at the Battle of the Monongahela. About ten miles east of what is now Pittsburgh, Braddock's men were attacked by an alliance of French and Indian warriors. The British column fell into confusion as the Indian warriors formed a half moon around it. Braddock had multiple horses shot out from under him and ultimately was wounded through the lung himself. Two out of three British soldiers were wounded or killed during the four-hour battle.

Washington had multiple bullet holes through his clothes, but by all accounts, behaved with extraordinary poise under fire and tried to rally the remaining troops after Braddock was wounded. When Braddock died a few days later, Washington took his sash and kept it at Mount Vernon as a memento.

Washington's heroism at the Monongahela eclipsed his earlier failures. Indeed, the military experience that he gained during the French and Indian War-along with his integrity-were the reasons the Continental Congress selected him as commander in chief of the Continental Army in 1775.

By that time, memory of Washington's culpability in the Jumonville affair had waned significantly. The British had emerged victorious from the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years' War as it was known in a global context: When the two countries signed the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France surrendered all of its North American territories east of the Mississippi.

But the peace between France and Britain didn't last long. In 1778, the French signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States, which pitted them against Britain in the American War for Independence. Ironically, this meant the French were now supporting their old foe, George Washington-apparently willing to overlook the fact that he had once unintentionally confessed to the assassination of Ensign Jumonville.

What became of the Ohio Iroquois? Their alliance with the British brought them few rewards, as British settlers expanded onto their Ohio lands in the 1760s. The Revolutionary War dislocated them even farther. Some Ohio Iroquois descendants today are part of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation in Oklahoma.

Tanaghrisson never lived to see any of this. After the Jumonville affair, he and his people relocated to a plantation in central Pennsylvania. While waiting there in exile, Tanaghrisson caught pneumonia and died in early October 1754-a fictional viceroy over an Ohio kingdom that existed only in the British imperial imagination.

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When Young George Washington Started a War

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On the night of May 27, 1754, Lt. Col. George Washington led a party of Virginia soldiers out of an encampment in the Ohio Valley. The conditions were horrid-a night "as black as pitch," as the young commander recorded in his journal. An unceasing rain made the dark woods even more impervious to the soldiers and warriors.