- He was born in Hanover on 28 May 1660. He was the eldest son of the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and inherited titles and lands from his father and uncles.
- George was the first Hanoverian King of Great Britain and Ireland. He became king of England at the age of 54, at the death of his second cousin, Queen Anne, who had no children.
- He wasn't Queen Anne's closest relative, but thanks to the Act of Settlement 1701, Catholics couldn't inherit the throne. George was the closest relative who wasn't a Catholic. Originally, it was George's mother Sophia who was declared the heir to the British throne, but she died, aged 83, a couple of months before Anne - so the throne passed to her son.
- George was an unpopular king from the start. On his Coronation day, there were riots in over 20 towns in England. Catholics in particular weren't happy - the Jacobites tried to depose George in favour of Anne's Catholic half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart, but their attempts failed. A major reason why George wasn't liked was because he barely spoke English, at least at first, when he arrived in England. There are documents from later in his reign which show that he was proficient in English later on. He also spoke French, Latin, Italian and Dutch.
- Another reason was the way he treated his wife. When he was 22 he married his cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Celle, who was 16. He didn't love her - it was a marriage purely for financial gain. His mother disapproved at first, because Sophia wasn't royal enough, but she came around when she realised how much income she'd bring in. Sophia didn't want to marry him, either - she referred to him as “pig-snout” and begged not to be forced to go through with it. After the marriage, they both had affairs. Despite that, they had two children together - George Augustus and Sophia. When they were 11 and 8, the marriage was dissolved and Sophia banished to the Castle of Ahlden, never allowed to see her children again. She was imprisoned there for 33 years, until she died. Sophia may have cursed George from beyond the grave. There's a popular story that as Sophia was dying she wrote a letter to George in which she predicted he too would die within a year - and that he died within a week of opening it.
- When George arrived in England, he brought with him 18 cooks and two women. One of them was tall and thin and the other was very fat, so they became known as ‘the Maypole’ and ‘the Elephant’. George was known to have a thing for very fat women. The ‘Elephant’ was his illegitimate half-sister Sophia von Kielmansegg, and though the Royal family always denied she was actually his mistress, the British public never believed them. The ‘Maypole’ was Melusine von der Schulenburg, who'd been a maid of honour to George's mother. There was never any doubt she was his mistress - she was his official one, and they had three daughters together.
- George I and his son, the future George II, hated each other.
- It was during George's reign that the powers of the monarchy began to shrink, and the political system we have now with a cabinet government led by a prime minister, began to emerge. Robert Walpole, now recognised as Britain's first de facto prime minister, came to power at this time.
- It's hard to know what kind of person George I really was. He seemed dull and awkward in public, yet his private letters to his daughter show a different side to him - a genial and affectionate side.
- Although he moved to England on taking the throne, he missed his home town of Hanover and made frequent visits. On one of his visits, he suffered a stroke and died, and hence became the last British monarch to be buried outside the United Kingdom. He was succeeded by his son, George II.
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