Tadeusz Kosciuszko
Tadeusz Kościuszko (born February 4, 1746 in the village of Mereszowszczyzna, Lithuania, Poland; died October 15, 1817, Solothurn, Switzerland) was a Polish general and a leader of that nation's uprising against Russia in 1794. He fought in the American Revolution on the side of Washington, for which he was awarded by the United States Congress the rank of Brigadier-General.Kosciuszko was born into an upper-middle-class aristocratic family. After finishing his military studies in Warsaw, he studied military engineering in France. After earning the rank of general, he took part in the American Revolutionary War. He was in charge of military engineering works at West Point, and also made significant contributions to the American victory at Saratoga in 1777.
In 1792 in Poland he was military commander in the War in the defence of constitution, defence of Poland against Russian invasion. With the invasion successful, resulting in the Second partition of Poland, he fled to Saxony, but returned in 1794 to lead Kosciuszko Uprising as the head of state against Russian occupation. He was captured by the Russians, but the Catherine II of Russia soon died. Her son Paul of Russia, who hated his mother, reverted all her decisions, which included realeasíng all Polish political prisoners. Kosciuszko was pardoned and released. He spent the rest of his life in exile in Switzerland, refusing to serve as Napoleon's puppet at the head of the government of the Principality of Warsaw.
The Polish explorer Count Paul Strzelecki named Mount Kosciuszko, in Australia, for him. He is also the namesake of Kosciusko, Mississippi, Kosciusko County in Indiana, the Kosciusko Bridge in New York State (just north of Albany), and Thaddeus Kosciusko Way in downtown Los Angeles.