Facts about George Washington’s life — or are they? Take our quiz

WASHINGTON — Like his friend and fellow President Thomas Jefferson, the story of George Washington’s life is full of legends of things he said and did. Some of them are even true!

Here, with the help of the website of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, are some of the best-known and less-known stories about George Washington’s exploits, alternating with slides explaining the true story. True stories get a picture of the real Washington; false ones, a different Washington.

This Feb. 20, 2011 file photo shows Mount Vernon, the home of America's first president, Gen. George Washington in Mt. Vernon, Va. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) — **True or false:** Washington was an excellent dancer. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

**True.** He started dancing as a teenager, and kept it up all his life. Even during the Revolutionary War, he danced with Gen. Nathaniel Greene’s wife for “upwards of three hours without sitting down.” Dancing was serious business at the time, the Mount Vernon site explains: It was the entree to high society; it was an important part of the courtship ritual, and there was no shortage of people at dance parties looking for bad dancers to laugh at. (AP Photo)

George Washington Parkway sign — **True or false:** George Washington had wooden teeth. (WTOP/Dave Dildine)

George Washington's dentures are shown after their installation into a display at the Heinz Regional History Center in Pittsburgh, Monday, July 24, 2000. The teeth, part of a temporary exhibit on George Washington at the museum that opens on Saturday, July 29, are not carved from wood, but made with human and cow teeth according to Mount Vernon Estate collections manager Rebecca Eddins. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) — **False.** He did, however, have dental problems all his life, and did wear false teeth, made out of “human, and probably cow and horse teeth,” as well as various metals and other materials, Mount Vernon said. You can see some sets of his teeth at Mount Vernon; your own teeth would have to be pretty bad to subject yourself to these. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

**True or false:** George Washington was born a subject of Great Britain, but he never went there. (Courtesy George Washington’s Mount Vernon)

377869 44: A portrait of George Washington, first President of the United States serving from 1789 to 1797. (Photo by National Archive/Newsmakers) — **True.** Washington left the North American mainland exactly once in his life — when he was 19. He went to Barbados with his half-brother Lawrence in 1751. Lawrence was suffering from tuberculosis, and his doctor told him to spend the winter in the tropics. The trip (it took six weeks to get there!) was important on a number of levels. For one, Washington’s life was pretty tightly circumscribed even by the standards of the time: It was his first trip outside the Northern Neck of Virginia. For another, he caught smallpox while he was there. That sounds like a bad break, but in fact it was quite the opposite: He picked up a lifelong immunity from the disease, which probably saved his life — it devastated his army more than once during the Revolutionary War. Fun fact: On the trip back, Washington’s sea chest was robbed. No one ever figured out who did it. On a boat. In the ocean. Hmmm. (Photo by National Archive/Newsmakers)

Visitors walks toward the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, Monday, Sept. 26, 2016. The National Park Service announced it wants to prohibit sports and recreation on multiple fields along the National Mall, but D.C. residents and government officials do not agree with the decision. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) — **True or false:** Even though he fought in the French and Indian War for the British and in the Revolutionary War for the Americans, Washington was never wounded in battle. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

**ADVANCE FOR FRIDAY, FEB. 1--FILE** A bronze statue of George Washington looks out along Broad St. and the New York Stock Exchange on Presidents' Day in this Feb. 19, 1996 file photo, from the steps of New York's Federal Hall, where the nation's first president was sworn into office on April 30, 1789. (AP Photo/Ed Bailey, file) — **True**, although he had more than a few close calls, including the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, during which he got four bullets in his uniform that managed not to hit his body. Oh yeah — he had dysentery, so he had pillows in his saddle. (AP Photo/Ed Bailey, file)

**True or false:** George Washington chopped down a cherry tree when he was 6, confessed it to his father and got congratulated for his honesty. (WTOP/Dave Dildine)

It is either an air and sea search or just more of the sweathog?s antics as performed by the cast of the ABC Television Network?s hit comedy series, ?Welcome Back, Kotter? which airs on Saturday, November 1978 (8:00-8:30 p.m., EST) Starring are (l. to r.) Stephen Shortridge as the newest sweathog, Beau De Labarre, Lawrence Hilton Jacobs as Freddy Washington, Ron Palillo as Arnold Horshack, Robert Hegyes as Juan Epstein (Foreground), John Travolta (Rear) as Vinnie Barbarino and Gabe Kaplan as Gabe Kotter. (AP Photo) — **False.** You’d think a story about being honest would be true, but it’s not only made up; it’s totally transparently made up. It first appeared in “The Life of Washington,” by Mason Locke Weems, and the first edition was released in 1800, less than a year after Washington died. But the cherry-tree story didn’t even show up until the fifth edition, in 1806. C’mon, man. (That’s a 1978 photo of the cast of “Welcome Back Kotter.” Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, as Freddy “Boom Boom” Washington, is second from left. Maybe he cut down a cherry tree and confessed it to his dad; George Washington sure didn’t.) (AP Photo)

A bronze statue of General George Washington by William Rudolf O'Donovan stands on top of the Trenton Battle Monument while silhouetted by a supermoon, Monday, Jan. 1, 2018, in Trenton, N.J. The monument commemorates the victory at the first Battle of Trenton, which occurred on Dec. 26, 1776, and is located where the artillery dominated the streets of Trenton, preventing the Hessian troops from organizing attacks. Monday's moon is the second of three consecutive supermoons. The first occurred Dec. 3, 2017, and the next will happen on Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) — **True or false:** Washington was born Feb. 22, 1732. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

AP: fec3a2cd-3d3a-435f-871e-335a0e6508cd — **True or false:** George Washington once said “When government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern.” (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

If the Nationals continue to follow their current trend, they'll be on track to have a Racing FDR in 2017. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) — **False.** Like Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, George Washington’s Mount Vernon has an entire section on their website that lists things people think Washington said but he really didn’t. (That is, of course, the Washington Nationals’ Racing Presidents version of Washington.) (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

Tourists walk around the base of the Washington Monument on Presidents Day weekend as the sunsets Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. David Ake) — **True or false:** George Washington grew hemp. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

True, although the idea that he grew marijuana is false. Washington grew Cannabis sativa, a plant that was (and is) good for making rope, cloth and more. Cannabis sativa indica is marijuana — the key is the THC, and marijuana contains 6 to 20 percent THC, while Washington’s hemp stood at 0.3 percent. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File

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