Leader of the victorious Continental Army, first U.S. president and presiding spirit in the drawing up of his new nation’s constitution, Virginia-born George Washington was a hero and role model to revolutionary anti Hanoverians such as Burns. There are a number of songs celebrating Washington's birthday. Robert Burns wrote this poem in 1794.

Ode [For General Washington's Birthday]

No Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
No lyre Eolian I awake;
'Tis Liberty's bold note I swell,
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take.
See gathering thousands, while I sing,
A broken chain, exulting, bring,
And dash it in a tyrant's face!
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is feared,
No more the Despot of Columbia's race.
A tyrant's proudest insults brav'd,
They shout - a People freed! They hail an Empire saved.

On George Washington's birth certificate, it says that he was born on Feb. 11, 1731. In the textbooks it says that he was born Feb. 22, 1732. Which side is correct? Both, as usual. When Julius Caesar developed his calendar, his solar calculations were off by 11 minutes and 14 seconds a year. It added up over time. When Pope Gregory XIII developed his calendar in 1582, the disparity had reached 10 days. Gregory decreed that Oct. 4, 1582, should be called Oct. 15. England and its colonies finally adopted the Gregorian calendar on Sept. 2, 1752, decreeing the next day should be Sept. 14, thus bridging the 11-day difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Thus, too, George Washington's birth date was transposed from Feb. 11, 1731 (called Old Style), to Feb. 22, 1732 (New Style). The British act also fixed the start of the new year at Jan. 1. Since the calendar was changed in September, moving January and February to the beginning of the year, Washington did not have a birthday in 1731. He skipped a year and thus became 11 days older and one year younger. JOHN M. CULKIN New York, Feb. 22, 1991. From The New York Times.