George Washington, Hottie

Quick, what's the first word that comes to mind when I say "George Washington"? President? Founding Father?

How about ... hottie?

Washington wasn’t always the old, white-haired patriarchal Founding Father we know and love. At six feet three inches, the young Washington had the ladies of pre-Revolutionary Virginia swooning. On closer introduction, they were enchanted by his magnetic gray-blue eyes and auburn ponytail.

And he was ripped: modern experts who reconstructed Washington’s appearance using techniques from forensic anthropology say he had a quarterback’s physique, weighing 220 pounds with wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and muscular legs. Legs were a particularly important feature in colonial America, where styles favored breeches and knee stockings so women could admire men’s calves. In 1759, at the age of 27, Washington’s masculine wiles snared Martha Custis— the young, beautiful, and spectacularly wealthy widow of a Virginia planter.

If you like neat historical trivia like that one above, you can't go wrong with mental_floss' new book The Mental Floss History of the United States: The (Almost) Complete and (Entirely) Entertaining Story of America by Erik Sass, Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur. Better yet, you get 3 free issues of the magazine when you pre-order the book - thanks Will!


I gnu rite. Look how totally cut he was according to this historically accurate sculpture from 1840, based off of rare shirtless paintings of Washington dressed up like Zeus to "spice things up a little" for fair lady Martha.

Historians are still trying to locate the paintings of Washington as lumberjack and Washington as firefighter.
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