If there's one thing Thomas Jefferson is known for, it's being President. If there's two, it's for writing the Declaration of Independence. I don't know why he's better known for the first thing. Dozens of people have been President, but so far only one such Declaration has ever been written. and if someone ever has to write another one it probably won't be as good.
a main thing that Thomas Jefferson accomplished (while President) was the Louisiana Purchase. In name, that might not sound like much, but keep in mind that Louisiana was way bigger back then. In fact, it was about the same size as the United States itself! So after that, we had twice as much land. He bought 828,000 square miles of land for what would nowadays come to about 42 cents per acre. It turned out to be a pretty good idea in the long run. The land was purchased from the French, who were pretty desperate to sell. Napoleon was in charge of France at the time and way too busy to keep up the property.
The next step for Jefferson would be finding out exactly what he just bought! He commissioned Lewis and Clark to go exploring and draw good accurate maps, or at least try their best. (Drawing a map of 828,000 square miles is ridiculously challenging when you have to ballpark it using eyesight, so Jefferson was understandably patient.) He also had them go BEYOND the new territory and investigate the mysterious Pacific Northwest. No one had wanted to go there previously, possibly because of all the rain. Lewis and Clark were the first to explore it, besides Native Americans, but it doesn't "count" as exploring if you're already there. The Pacific Northwest would later be fully welcomed into the United States, but it is still mysterious.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, Thomas Jefferson was in the process of amassing thousands of books for his personal library. He really liked reading! Jefferson was pretty well settled in at Monticello (his home, people used to NAME their HOMES) by then, with no plans of ever moving, and good thing because anyone who's ever moved can tell you that books are very heavy. Eventually he would sell his entire collection to Congress after the British burned their original library down. He immediately regretted it, went into withdrawal, and just started buying tons of books again. I would like it if Thomas Jefferson was known as "The Bookworm President," but for some reason he is not.
Not everything Thomas Jefferson did was good. Far from it. While he always professed to be anti-slavery, it is also well documented that he kept many slaves at the same time. He tried to justify it by claiming that he was extra nice and caring towards his slaves, but to that I gotta say "No Way Tommy Jay." You can't have it both ways. If your ghost is still around and reading this blog I would like to tell you that what you did was bad and wrong. and also if your ghost is still around and reading this please do not pay me a visit to argue the point. You were just wrong. Stay away from me.
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