In today's session, Yanuell continued his American Revolution unit of study. Yanuell felt that it was important to learn more about King George III, so he did biographical research and reading. There were many facts and details about King George that Yanuell didn't know and was happy to learn. In addition to reading a great deal of information about the monarch, Yanuell uncovered some extremely interesting facts. The first being that King George was England’s longest-ruling monarch before Queen Victoria, with a 59-year reign. Being the science lover that he is, Yanuell was excited to learn that the planet Uranus was originally named "Georgium sidus," the Georgian Star, after King George III of England, who had funded the 40-foot telescope William Herschel used in its discovery. Another shocking detail was that he had suffered intermittent bouts of acute mental illness and spent his last decade in a fog of insanity and blindness. George III died blind, deaf and mad on January 29, 1820. His illnesses may have been caused by porphyria, an inherited metabolic disorder, though a 2005 analysis of hair samples suggested arsenic poisoning (from medicines and cosmetics) as a possible cause. This biographical research will help Yanuell analyze the decisions that the monarch made during the Revolutionary War.