This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star

and the American people.

And all of our history segments are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College,

where you can go to learn all the things that are good in life and all the things that are

beautiful in life. Their online courses are free. They're terrific. Go to hillsdale.edu.

Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood

than Alexander Hamilton.

Ron Chernow's New York Times bestselling biography about Hamilton became the inspiration

for the Broadway hit musical.

Here's Ron with the story of founding father, Alexander Hamilton.

I think it's fair to say that nowadays, even well-educated Americans are largely ignorant about

the first Treasury Secretary. They know that he appears on the $10 bill, although you may notice

with something of a Hollywood makeover on the new currency.

Hamilton, I think, was the best looking of the founders, but the Treasury Department, in its wisdom, has decided that he needed some plastic surgery.

You'll notice that they have widened his face and they've given him this rugged,

square-draud look as if he were auditioning for a Hollywood action movie.

Back, there was a marvelous piece in U.S. News & World Report,

reviewing the airbrushed images of the founders on the latest bills.

And when the magazine came to Hamilton, it positively gushed, and I quote,

and as for Hamilton, he now looks like a real hunk.

So it took us two centuries to get a hunky founder where we have him.

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