1742: Revolutionary war hero Nathanael Greene was born at Potowomut in Warwick, Rhode Island. Before the Revolution, Greene managed his father's iron foundries and is said to have served in the Rhode Island colonial legislature. Self-trained in military tactics and science, he was instrumental in the formation of a unit known as the Kentish Guards in October 1774, serving as a private until his commission in May 1775 as a brigadier general in the Rhode Island Army of Observation. In June of the same year he was commissioned with the same rank in the Continental army with command of troops during the siege of Boston in 1775 and 1776. (Source: Library of Congress)