General of the Army

It is also a military rank in Russia (and the Soviet Union), France and some other countries.

United States

On July 25, 1866, the U.S. Congress established the grade of "General of the Army" for Ulysses S. Grant, and later appointed William T. Sherman (on 4 March 1869) and then Philip H. Sheridan (on 1 June 1888, just weeks before he died) to the rank. On 3 September 1919, John J. Pershing was named General of the Armies of the United States, and held the rank until he died, in 1948. In all of these cases, the generals wore four stars as their insignia, except between 1872 and 1888, when Sherman and Sheridan wore two stars with the arms of the United States in between. Pershing was authorized to specify his own insignia, but chose to wear the standard four stars of a full general.

The five-star rank was created by Public Law 482 of the 78th Congress, passed on 14 December 1944, first as a temporary rank, then made permanent 23 March 1946 by an act of the 79th Congress. This was done to have American officers with ranks equivalent to the field marshals of Britain, to reduce friction over who was allowed to give orders to whom. (The acts also created a comparable rank of Fleet Admiral for the Navy.).

Following the establishment of the United States Air Force in 1947, the equivalent rank of General of the Air Force was established. The only person to hold the rank of General of the Air Force was Henry Arnold.

A General of the Army has the pay grade of O-11.

The insignia consists of five stars in a pentagonal pattern, with points touching. The rank still exists today, although nobody has held it since General Bradley died in 1981.

Officers that held the rank

Unsurprisingly, the five-star Generals of the Army are all familiar names:
Note the careful timing of the first four appointments. The dates of rank for the corresponding five-star admiralss are 15, 17, and 19 December 1944, to establish both a clear order of seniority and a near-equivalence between the services.

see also List of US military leaders by rank

Russia

See Russian military ranks.

France

In France, Générals d'Armées wear five stars, but are equivalent to the rank of General in other armies; the commander of the Parisian sector wears a sixth star, regardless of actual rank, and Maréchals de France wear seven, being the closest approximation to a General of the Army or Field Marshal, although the position is a distinction, not a rank.

Other countries

The rank also exists (on paper at least) in Indonesia and Liberia. In Taiwan, Chiang Kai-Shek has been the only five-star general in the history of the Republic of China, although the rank is formally known as General Special Class.