Today, February 22nd, is the anniversary of George Washington’s birthday, and because this is “The Storyteller’s Night Sky,” I’m going to talk about how the first president of the United States is related to the stars.
During the American Revolution, and specifically in the 1780s, there were three significant George’s in the world: King George of England, against whom the colonists were rebelling; George Washington, who was the leader of the Continental Army; and a brand new planet, discovered by William Herschel, and which he called the “Georgian Star”.
Herschel was a German-born astronomer living and working in England, so this was his way of paying homage to his monarch. It was March of 1781, the same time that the American colonists set up a national government separate from the King by instituting the articles of confederation.
So let’s think about this, it was 1781, and the French were supporting the Americans in their Revolution against King George, so the French astronomers didn’t want to call this new planet after the King of England. Instead, they called it by the name of its discoverer, Herschel.
So here’s this naming challenge. It happened with Washington and with this new planet. The early Americans did not want to call Washington “King” or “Your Excellency”, so when he was finally inaugurated as the new leader, they decided to call him “President”, as in ‘one who presides over an assembly.’
Similarly, astronomers did not want to call the new planet “George” or “Herschel”. Instead, they agreed to the Greek word for “heaven” or “sky”, which is “Uranus.”
It takes Uranus 84 years to complete one orbit of the Sun which makes the planet really conspicuous in the history of the struggle it took to found the United States. It was discovered during the American Revolution and only completed its first orbit 84 years later in 1865, which marked close of the American Civil War, after the new nation had been established, tested, and found to ultimately prevail.