Hi everybody. Today. Bye, mommy. It's going to talk about Thomas.

The 15. Thank you, Noah, for introducing Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States.

President Jefferson belonged to a political party called the Democratic Republicans.

He became our president in the year 1800.

At this time, the general public did not yet vote for president.

The elections were decided by electors.

Incredibly, the 1800 election resulted in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, who both received 73 electoral votes.

John Adams finished in third place with 65 votes, and his attempts to serve a second term failed.

In fact, things would only get worse for the Federalist.

The political party of George Washington and John Adams

as a Federalist would never again be president. Thomas Jefferson was very popular before becoming

president because he was the author of the Declaration of Independence, a beautifully written document

that announced our independence from the influence of other countries.

He was well educated, having attended the College of William and Mary, and he was very well spoken.

In fact, five men were appointed to write the Declaration of Independence, and they unanimously selected Jefferson to be the author.

That's pretty impressive, considering

the other four men were John Adams, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Livingston.

The Declaration of Independence was printed and made public on July 4, 1776, a date that would

from that point forward become Independence Day.

Jefferson's first term was incredibly successful. On this day, October 20th, 216 years ago in the year

1803, the United States acquired 800,000 square miles of additional land for $15 million, and a deal that was

known as the Louisiana purchase. This purchase doubled the size of the United States. During his first

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