Thomas jefferson short biography
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Thomas Jefferson
Who Was Thomas Jefferson?
Thomas Jefferson was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The native Virginian was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and later held several national offices. Jefferson served as the nation’s first sekreterare of state, and the second vice president (under John Adams), and the third American president, from to During his two-term presidency, Jefferson doubled the size of the United States bygd successfully brokering the Louisiana Purchase and defeated pirates from North Africa during the Barbary War. In retirement, Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and continued work on his beloved Monticello estate. He died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence at age
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Thomas Jefferson
BORN: April 13,
DIED: July 4,
BIRTHPLACE: Shadwell, Virginia
SPOUSE: Martha Jefferson ()
CHILDREN: 12
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Aries
When and Where Was Thomas Jefferson Born?
Thomas
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Thomas Jefferson: Life Before the Presidency
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, , at Shadwell plantation in western Virginia. His first childhood memory, at age three, was of the fifty-mile horseback ride he took with his father's slave into the Virginia wilderness. This journey was undertaken with his family as they moved to a plantation that Jefferson's father was to manage, acting as executor of a friend's estate. Along with his parents and three siblings—three other sisters and one brother were later born to the family—Jefferson spent the next six years roaming the woods and studying his books.
Intellectual Beginnings
At age nine, Jefferson began his formal studies, boarding with a minister-teacher nine months out of the year. He continued boarding school until age sixteen, excelling in classical languages. In , Jefferson enrolled at the College of William and Mary, taking classes in science, mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy, and literature. The precocious Jefferson f
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Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, in Albemarle County, Virginia to Jane and Peter Jefferson. His father was a Virginia planter, surveyor, and slave owner. At age fourteen, Jefferson’s father died, and Thomas inherited some thirty enslaved individuals. Jefferson fully embraced the lifestyle of an affluent member of the planter class, and over the course of his lifetime he owned over enslaved people—the most of any American president.
In addition to building and managing his Monticello plantation, Jefferson pursued careers in law and public service. After receiving an education at the College of William & Mary, Jefferson studied law in Williamsburg. By , he was serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses and three years later married Martha Wayles Skelton. They would have six children together, though only two survived to adulthood.
As tensions grew between the American colonies and Great Britain, Jefferson was elected to the Continental Congress. In , he completed one of