Washington's First Mistake - May 28, 1754

On May 28, 1754, a 22-year-old George Washington led a predawn ambush in a Pennsylvania forest that lasted fifteen minutes and set the world on fire. The skirmish at Jumonville Glen ignited the Seven Years' War, the first true world war fought on five continents, and planted the seeds of the American Revolution. But the story history rarely tells is the role of the Mingo chief Tanacharison, who may have manipulated Washington into starting a war that served Indigenous strategic interests and Washington never fully understood what had happened until he had already signed a war-crime confession in a language he could not read.