On this day 195 years ago, Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko died at the age of 71. He never actually visited Australia, but Australia’s highest mountain, Mount Kosciuszko, was named after him by the Polish explorer Count Strzelecki, who climbed the mountain in 1840. Kościuszko was born in a village which was at the time part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but is now in Belarus. After graduating as a captain from the Polish Corps of Cadets, he took up a scholarship in Paris.
The French supported the Americans in the American Revolutionary War, and Kościuszko sailed for America in June 1776, receiving a commission as Colonel of Engineers in the Continental Army later that year. He became a strong believer in the United States Declaration of Independence, and sought out Thomas Jefferson, with whom he became a close friend. He was responsible for designing an array of defences at Saratoga, and his good judgment and attention to detail helped in the defeat of the British Army.
After serving with distinction in the war, Kościuszko was promoted to brigadier general and given American citizenship. Returning to Poland, he joined the army as a major general, but the country fell under Russian and Prussian control. In 1794 he led the Kościuszko uprising against Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia, becoming a national hero although the uprising was unsuccessful.