Jumonville Glen

On May 28, 1754, Lieutenant Colonel George Washington led a group of around forty Virginia militia troops against about the same number of French troops in what is now western Pennsylvania.  The site is now called Jumonville Glen, after a French soldier killed by an Indian ally of Washington's while the Virginian was interrogating Jumonville. 

The incident was one of the opening skirmishes in what Americans call the French and Indian War, known in Europe as the Seven Years War.  Washington's military experience during that war was the main reason he was chosen to command the Continental Army during the American Revolution and to later serve as the first President of the United States.