Welcome to the National Archives here in Washington, D.C. right off the National Mall.

We've come to see something very important. Follow me.

You are now standing in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.

Pretty grand, right?

Look at the walls.

The circular way they sweep upward to the dome.

The octagonal patterns in the ceiling,

all very classical, all referencing those ancient Greco-Roman spaces,

back when the notion of a Democratic republic was first born. A grandiose setting for our most sacred ideals scribbled on

parchments. Here, preserved hundreds of years old. On either side are the

Faulkner murals, the two massive oil paintings depicting the signatories of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

These documents here before us, oh plus the Bill of Rights, all encased in protective glass.

Amazing, right? The founding documents. They say every night they are lowered into hardened

vaults below ground, secured from even a nuclear attack.

Or so say the rumors.

Now look, central in that composition to the left is John Hancock looming over the Declaration of Independence

his pale gray suit standing out just so the man was a founding father fashion plate

Hancock always knew how to distinguish himself, especially when it came to

putting quill to parchment and ins We are covering on our episode today

one of the signature moments of the American Revolutionary Period

in which a fundamental founding father inks his way into greatness with the feathered flourish of a quill pen.

But that's only one action among so many that made John Hancock such a central figure in the creation of the United States of America,

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