John Adams 2nd president (feb 23, 1735 – jun 28, 1826)
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John Adams visited Shakespeare’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon with Thomas Jefferson, before they hated each other’s guts. While there, they chipped off a piece of one of Shakespeare’s chairs as a souvenir.
Years later, Adams was embroiled in an election battle against his Vice President Jefferson. Adams called him “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father” and, in an attack ad, warned of the consequences of a potential Jefferson presidency: “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood and the nation black with crimes.” And we thought the 2016 election cycle was out of control!
As Fate would have it, both Adams and Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
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United States History
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