number of books on the arts and history, among them being the birth of virginia s aristocracy and thomas jefferson s enlightenment. after his presentation, there will be a q&a and mr. thompson will be happy to sign copies of his book. please take the opportunity to explore our library and museum with its new exhibition, remembering the american to 1890.n, 1776 period rooms31 detecting life in early america. all these resources are free and open to the public. without further ado, please welcome jim thompson. [applause] jim: thank you, mark, for the fine introduction, and thank you all for coming today. i appreciate you joining me and learning with me about billy lee. i m going to begin with a couple brief comments about my background and my approach, my view of the past, and how i research. then i m going to talk about the book. i m only going to focus on a couple aspects. i m going to focus on the first point is, how was george washington related to billy lee? i believe th