How Much Do You Know About John Adams?

In 1798, John Adams signed into law an act of Congress establishing the foundation of the United States Marine Band, which today is the oldest continuously active professional music group in the country. The band performed at the very first White House reception on New Year's Day in 1801, and years later was led by the esteemed musical director John Philip Sousa.

John Adams ran on the Federalist ticket with running mate Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina. At the time, whichever two candidates received the most votes — regardless of whether they were on the same ticket or not — were named President and Vice President. Pinckney ultimately received fewer electoral votes than runner-up Thomas Jefferson, which resulted in Jefferson being selected as the Vice President instead of Adams' own running mate.

America's second President was actually the first to graduate from college, at a time when doing so was rare even for the privileged. In 1751, when John Adams began attending Harvard on a scholarship, there were only about 100 other pupils. Harvard was one of just four colleges in the colonies at the time, alongside Yale, William and Mary, and the College of New Jersey (which later became Princeton). Adams studied history, science, philosophy, and Latin and Greek, and excelled at all of them. He graduated in 1755 and went on to become an attorney, although he never attended law school.

In the buildup to the American Revolution, John Adams published a series of essays in the “Boston Gazette” to argue against some of the offenses caused by the British. To lend his words a more “everyman” quality by evoking a farming tool, he used the pseudonym "Humphrey Ploughjogger." One of his most ardent aggravations was the passage of the Stamp Act, which he (as Ploughjogger) argued was invalid due to the lack of colonial representation in Parliament.

In 1800, the last year of John Adams' presidency, an act of Congress was passed that provided $5,000 to establish a repository of books for the use of Congress. This was a small addition to a larger act moving the national capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., and it marked the beginning of the Library of Congress. President Thomas Jefferson continued the government's literary ambitions, creating the Librarian of Congress position and making it subject to presidential appointment. Today, the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world.

After the end of his one-term presidency, John Adams retired to Peacefield, his 600-acre farm in Quincy, Massachusetts. Though he had two servants and two farmhands on his payroll, Adams was also known to perform a good deal of the physical farm labor. From his exodus from public service to his death 26 years later, Adams rarely left his bucolic home.

John Quincy Adams was John Adams' son as well as the sixth President of the United States. Samuel Adams (of modern beer fame) was also an American revolutionary and was John Adams' second cousin. Louisa Adams was the wife of John Quincy Adams, and thus was John Adams' daughter-in-law. Douglas Adams, the author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," is not known to be related to the second U.S. President.

In a letter to his wife Abigail Adams in 1793, John Adams clearly showed how tired he was of holding his current office as Vice President. Constitutionally speaking, the only duty the VP has (aside from assuming the presidency if needed) is breaking ties in the Senate. This limited responsibility led Adams to call the position "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."

In the late 1700s, the French government began seizing American merchant ships in an effort to finance its European wars. To restore harmony, U.S. envoys were dispatched to meet with French intermediaries — codenamed X, Y, and Z — who demanded bribes to cool the tensions. These demands were eventually made public, turning the American people against France and increasing the pressure on the European nation to back down.

Every year on April 19, the Netherlands and the United States jointly celebrate Dutch-American Friendship Day, which marks the anniversary of John Adams' recognition as U.S. Minister to the Netherlands. That same day in 1782, Adams purchased his house in the Hague, which became the first American embassy on foreign soil anywhere in the world.

In 1783, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay traveled to Europe to meet with representatives of King George III to formally end the Revolutionary War. According to the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the British Crown formally recognized American independence and ceded most of its territory east of the Mississippi River to the newly formed United States.

On July 4, 1826 — the 50-year anniversary of American independence — John Adams died at the age of 90. In his final years, he had reignited a friendship with his longtime rival Thomas Jefferson through a long correspondence of letters, and on his deathbed Adams' tragic final words were, "Jefferson still lives." Unfortunately, this was not the case, as Jefferson had passed away just hours earlier in his own home at Monticello.

In July 1776, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin were tasked with designing a new seal and motto for the nation. The result was the Latin phrase "E pluribus unum," meaning, "Out of many, one." For the seal, Adams proposed an image from the Greek parable "The Choice of Hercules," as he believed that Americans should lead moral personal lives and devote themselves to civic duty. Ultimately, an image of a bald eagle — the national bird — was selected instead.

John Adams was the only U.S. President ever to serve as a member of the Federalist Party. One of the first two political parties in the U.S., the Federalists opposed the Democratic-Republican Party and supported diplomatic harmony with Great Britain. After the Adams administration, the Federalists continued to back candidates for the presidency, but by the 1820s, the party had completely dissolved.

When the smoke cleared after the Boston Massacre on the night of March 5, 1770, five colonists were dead. The next morning, eight British soldiers and their commanding officer faced murder charges. Despite being a staunch Patriot and supporting the Revolution, John Adams defended the soldiers. Due to his shrewd legal mind, only two British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter.

After the difficult Revolutionary War was won by the newly formed United States of America, John Adams was selected to become the first-ever minister to Great Britain. The role, which is now known as an ambassadorship, positioned Adams as the senior delegate in Europe and allowed him to set the tone for his nascent country's relationship with its former enemy.

The U.S. presidential election of 1796 pitted current Vice President John Adams against his Democratic-Republican rival, Thomas Jefferson. The VP competed for electoral votes against George Washington's former secretary of state in what ended up being one of the closest races in American history. Adams took the victory with 71 electoral votes to Jefferson's 68 to become the second U.S. President.

Before the United States became an independent country, representatives from the 13 Colonies met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to discuss their common future in what would be known as the Continental Congress. John Adams was elected to the Massachusetts delegation and quickly became a leader. Eventually, he and his supporters swayed the majority of Congress, and independence from Great Britain was declared.

John Adams served as George Washington's Vice President, making him the first Vice President in U.S. history. He was elected President in 1796 after Washington stepped down following his second term. Adams ran under the Federalist Party and served one term from 1797 to 1801.

John Adams met his future wife and trusted advisor, Abigail, in 1759 when he was 24 and she was only 15. He initially dismissed her. Over the next few years however, the two fell in love and married in 1764. From there, their relationship blossomed into one of history's greatest love stories, with more than 1,000 passionate letters between them surviving to this day.