Word: jeffersons
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...JEFFERSON STARTED BUILDING MONTICELLO WHEN HE WAS 25... ...HE ADDED THE FINAL TOUCHES WHEN HE WAS 80 YEARS OLD Sources: Thomas Jefferson Foundation monticello.org) The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, by Susan R. Stein; Monticello in Measured Drawings, commentary by William L. Beiswanger; Thomas Jefferson's Monticello; Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder, by Jack McLaughlin
...Jefferson devoted nearly a third of the main level to his private apartment. He rarely admitted visitors to this area, as it was perfectly tailored to his pursuits: a study where he maintained voluminous correspondence (even using a machine called a polygraph to copy letters as he wrote them); a collection of scientific instruments for studying the weather and the stars; a greenhouse for cultivating new plants; and, most important, space for his vast library
Within days of his March 1801 inauguration as the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson ordered a naval and military expedition to North Africa, without the authorization of Congress, to put down regimes involved in slavery and piracy. The war was the first in which the U.S. flag was carried and planted overseas; it saw the baptism by fire of the U.S. Marine Corps--whose anthem boasts of action on "the shores of Tripoli"--and it prefigured later struggles with both terrorism and jihad...
...Jefferson was appalled by this practice from an early stage of his career. In 1784 he wrote to James Madison about the Barbary depredations, saying, "We ought to begin a naval power, if we mean to carry on our commerce. Can we begin it on a more honorable occasion or with a weaker foe?" He added that John Paul Jones, the naval hero of the Revolutionary War, "with half a dozen frigates" could subdue the slave kingdoms of North Africa...
America's two main diplomats at the time were John Adams in London and Jefferson in Paris. Together they called upon Ambassador Abdrahaman, the envoy of Tripoli in London, in March 1786. This dignitary mentioned a tariff of three payments--for the ransom of slaves and hostages, for cheap terms of temporary peace and for more costly terms of "perpetual peace." He did not forget to add his own commission as a percentage. Adams and Jefferson asked to know by what right he was exacting these levies. The U.S. had never menaced or quarreled with any of the Muslim powers...