60 Fun Facts About Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was which number US president?

He followed John Adams, the man he had beaten in 1800 and served under as vice president.

In which city did Jefferson write most of the Declaration of Independence in June 1776?

He worked largely alone in rented rooms at 700 Market Street between June 11 and 28.

Jefferson's home Monticello takes its name from Italian words meaning what?

He began building it in 1768 on land inherited from his father and tinkered with it for the rest of his life.

At which family plantation was Jefferson born in 1743?

He was the third of ten children of a planter and surveyor; the Shadwell house later burned with his first library.

Jefferson's face appears on which US coin?

His home is on the other side of the same coin, and it has been there since 1938.

In what year was the Louisiana Purchase completed?

Napoleon offered the whole territory after his army failed to hold Saint-Domingue and war with Britain loomed.

Which famous expedition did Jefferson send west to explore the newly bought territory to the Pacific?

He personally tutored Meriwether Lewis in botany, mapping and astronomy before the Corps of Discovery left St. Louis in May 1804.

Jefferson is one of the four presidents carved into which national memorial?

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum picked him alongside Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln in the 1920s.

On what date did Jefferson die in 1826?

It was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration's adoption; his last significant words were reportedly 'Is it the Fourth?'

Which other Founding Father and ex-president died on the very same day as Jefferson?

Adams's last words were 'Thomas Jefferson survives', not knowing his old rival had died a few hours earlier.

Which institution did Jefferson found in 1819 and design himself?

He called the grounds the 'Academical Village' and put a library, not a chapel, at its centre.

Under which president did Jefferson serve as the first US Secretary of State?

He accepted the post soon after returning from five years as minister to France.

How old was Jefferson when he drafted the Declaration of Independence?

He was one of the youngest delegates to the Second Continental Congress.

Roughly what fraction of Jefferson's draft Declaration did Congress cut before adopting it?

He resented the edits but never complained publicly.

Which college did Jefferson enter at 17 in 1761?

After a first year of parties and dancing, he reportedly buckled down to studying fifteen hours a day.

Jefferson married a young widow on New Year's Day 1772. What was her name?

She was a skilled pianist; he accompanied her on violin or cello, and he never remarried after her death in 1782.

What did attendants find in a gold locket around Jefferson's neck after his death?

His wife Martha had died 44 years earlier, having made him promise never to marry again.

Jefferson succeeded which man as America's minister in Paris in 1785?

Told 'You replace Monsieur Franklin', he answered: 'I succeed. No man can replace him.'

Which momentous event was Jefferson present in Paris for on July 14, 1789?

He also let Lafayette hold revolutionary meetings at his residence and advised him on the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Annoyed that postmasters kept opening his mail in Europe, Jefferson invented what?

He wrote important letters in code for the rest of his career.

Jefferson and Madison founded which political organisation in 1792 to oppose the Federalists?

It dominated national politics for a generation after Jefferson's win in 1800.

The 1800 election ended in an Electoral College tie between Jefferson and which running mate?

The House needed 36 ballots to break it, and the mess produced the Twelfth Amendment.

How many House ballots did it take to elect Jefferson president in February 1801?

Hamilton lobbied Federalists to back Jefferson as the lesser evil, a decision that fed his fatal feud with Burr.

Jefferson's 1801 swearing-in was the first presidential inauguration held where?

He walked to the Capitol from his boarding house rather than ride in a carriage, or so the tradition goes.

How much did the United States pay France for the Louisiana territory?

That worked out at less than three cents an acre for about 828,000 square miles.

Which two American envoys signed the Louisiana Purchase treaty in Paris?

Livingston called it 'the noblest work of our whole lives'.

Doubting the Constitution allowed the Louisiana Purchase, what did Jefferson consider doing?

His cabinet talked him out of it and Congress simply ratified the treaty.

What is Jefferson's war with the Mediterranean pirate states, the first US foreign war, called?

He had opposed paying tribute since 1785 and sent the first American naval squadron ever to cross the Atlantic.

Which US warship was captured by the Pasha of Tripoli during Jefferson's war in the Mediterranean?

Jefferson answered with five naval bombardments of Tripoli and a land expedition led by consul William Eaton.

What was Jefferson's 1807 halt to all American overseas trade called?

It wrecked the US economy, and Jefferson signed its repeal days before leaving office.

Jefferson inherited a national debt of $83m. Roughly where did he leave it after two terms?

Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin's plan relied on scrapping the whiskey excise and shrinking the Navy.

Who served as Jefferson's Secretary of State for both terms before succeeding him as president?

Madison had also co-written the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions with him in 1798.

When his former vice president was tried for treason in 1807, Jefferson refused a subpoena, making the first argument for what doctrine?

The case was heard by his distant cousin and political foe, Chief Justice John Marshall, and Burr walked free.

Which president revived the in-person State of the Union, ending Jefferson's custom?

Jefferson was a poor speaker and preferred to have a clerk read his written message; the tradition held until 1913.

Jefferson wrote his only full-length book in answer to a French diplomat's questions. What was it called?

It was first published in French in 1785 and in English two years later.

What is one president's cut-and-paste compilation of Jesus's teachings popularly called?

He titled it The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth and left out the miracles.

Which piece of furniture is Jefferson credited with creating, and using while writing the Declaration?

He also improved the pedometer, the polygraph copying machine and the moldboard plow, which he refused to patent.

Jefferson's 'Great Clock' at Monticello was powered by the gravitational pull of what?

He also built a revolving book-stand so he could consult several volumes at once.

Which instrument did Jefferson play well enough to perform in weekly concerts at the Governor's Palace?

He called music 'the favorite passion of my soul' and also played the cello.

After the British burned the Capitol in 1814, Jefferson sold his books to restart what institution?

He got $23,950 for nearly 6,500 volumes, then promptly began collecting again.

What did Jefferson name the extinct giant ground sloth he described in 1797?

He is considered a pioneer of scientific palaeontology in North America, and the species was later named M. jeffersonii.

Which learned body did Jefferson head for eighteen years, including while US president?

He introduced Meriwether Lewis to its scientists so they could tutor him before the western expedition.

Jefferson spent thirty years collecting Native American vocabularies. What became of the collection?

The thief took the heavy chest thinking it held valuables and threw the papers overboard on finding only words.

Jefferson tried to make wine at Monticello. What happened to the two vineyards he planted?

His efforts are still counted as an important early contribution to American winemaking, though not for the results.

Jefferson died roughly how deep in debt, forcing the sale of his estate and enslaved people?

He had even won permission for a public lottery in his final months to try to raise money.

Jefferson wrote his own epitaph listing three achievements. Which of these did he leave OFF it?

None of his political offices made the cut, including two terms in the White House.

Over his adult life, roughly how many people did Jefferson hold in slavery?

He formally freed only two in his lifetime and five more in his will.

A 1998 study in Nature linked Jefferson's male line to descendants of which enslaved woman at Monticello?

The Y-DNA match was with her son Eston; her brother James had trained as a French chef in Paris.

Which law did Jefferson sign in March 1807 that took effect on January 1, 1808?

It made importing or exporting enslaved people from abroad a federal crime, though domestic slavery continued.

Jefferson modelled the Rotunda at the centre of his university on which ancient building?

He taught himself architecture from Palladio's Four Books and helped popularise the Neo-Palladian style in America.

In which year did Jefferson's Academical Village and Monticello become a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

It remains the only US college campus with that designation.

Only one other former US president has founded a university. Who?

Fillmore founded the University at Buffalo in 1846; Madison took over from Jefferson as UVA's rector.

How many letters did Jefferson and John Adams exchange after Benjamin Rush reunited them in 1812?

Historian David McCullough called it 'one of the most extraordinary correspondences in American history'.

Which 1798 documents by Jefferson and Madison argued states could resist unconstitutional federal laws?

Washington was so alarmed he warned they could 'dissolve the union'; Jefferson skipped Washington's funeral the next year.

As a young lawyer, Jefferson took on seven clients seeking what?

He argued that 'everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person'; the judge cut him off and ruled against his client.

Which old friend rushed into Jefferson's arms at Monticello in November 1824?

They had not seen each other since 1789; it was Jefferson's last public appearance.

The Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin was dedicated in 1943 to mark what?

Inside stands a 19-foot bronze statue by Rudulph Evans surrounded by passages from his writings.

As a student Jefferson joined the Flat Hat Club, described as the nation's oldest what?

Fellow members included Edmund Randolph and St. George Tucker.

Jefferson acquired Virginia's Natural Bridge in 1774 by a grant from whom?

He was fascinated by the formation and treated it as one of the wonders of the New World.

Which US Navy officer bought a decaying Monticello in 1834 and saved it from ruin?

Levy, an admirer of Jefferson's stand on religious freedom, paid $2,500 for it.