WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE



William Shakespeare was baptised on 26 April 1564. We don't know the exact date of his birth but in the 16th century it was normal for babies to baptised within a few days of their birth (because so many died).

William Shakespeare's father John was a glover (maker of gloves) and he seems to have been a leading citizen of Stratford Upon Avon.
We don't know if John Shakespeare was a native of Stratford but he was living in the town by 1552 because in that year he was fined for leaving a dunghill in Henley Street.

In 1557 John Shakespeare married a woman from nearby Wilmcote called Mary Arden. The Shakespeares had 8 children. In 1558 the Shakespeare's had a daughter called Joan (she died in 1563). However in 1563 they had another daughter called Margaret but she too died in childhood. After William in 1563 they had a son called Gilbert in 1566. (He died in 1612). They also had another daughter called Joan (like her dead sister) in 1569 and a daughter called Anne in 1571. In 1574 they had a son called Richard (he died in 1613). In 1580 they had a son called Edmund (he died in 1607).

When he was 18 William Shakespeare married a woman named Anne Hathaway. They married in November 1582 and their daughter Susanna was baptised in May 1583.

On 2 February 1585 the Shakespeare's next children, a twin boy and girl, Hamnet and Judith were baptised. However Hamnet died when he was 11.

William Shakespeare probably went to Stratford Grammar School. However we do not know what he did for a living when he was a young man but in about 1587 he went to London. He became an actor and a playwright.

By 1592 William Shakespeare was making a name for himself. In that year a man named Robert Greene wrote about 'an upstart crow' who 'is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. He didn't actually name William Shakespeare but it is clear who he meant.

The theatres in London were closed from 1592 to 1594 because of plague but Shakespeare wrote two poems during that time, Venus and Adonis 1593 and Lucerce in 1594.

William Shakespeare prospered and in 1597 he bought a house and gardens in Stratford for £60.

William Shakespeare made his will on 25 March 1616 shortly before he death. He died on 23 April 1616 and was buried in the parish church. Anne Shakespeare died in 1623. Susanna died in 1649 and Judith, the surviving twin died in 1662.

John Milton
(1608-1674)


Birth
John Milton was born at the sign of the Spread Eagle in Bread Street, London, the son of a law scrivener, who was also a keen musician and composer of music.

Education
He was educated initially at home by Thomas Young, a Scottish Presbyterian. He was a model scholar from an early age, sitting up late to study, and showing an early gift for writing verse. His education continued at St Paul’s School, where he befriended Charles Diodati, the son of a Protestant Italian doctor, who helped him in his study of the Italian language. In 1625 (17) he entered Christ College, Cambridge, where he gained the nickname ‘the Lady of Christ’s’. He appears to have been unimpressed with the educational standards of Cambridge, and argued with his first tutor, who was replaced.

Early poetry
While still at Cambridge, he wrote elegies and epigrams in Latin, and sonnets in Italian and English, and in 1629 (21) composed his ode On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, an accomplished work which he later placed at the beginning of his Poems (1645, 37). His lyric poems, L’Allegro and Il Penseroso (1632, 24), echo the poet Ben Jonson’s classical symmetry, clarity and urbanity, but introduce a deftness, charm and delicacy in both tone and rhythm, which were clearly beyond his model.

Financial support and further poetry
His father continued to support him financially after he left Cambridge in 1632 (24), and he was therefore able to continue his studies. He wrote the masques, Arcades and Comus, at the invitation of the composer and musician Henry Lawes, the latter piece for the inauguration of the Earl of Bridgewater as Lord President of Wales. Performed at Ludlow Castle, Shropshire, in 1634 (26) with Lawes playing the Attendant Spirit and the Earl’s children the other parts, it was well received and particularly eulogised by Sir Henry Wotton. In 1637 (29) he contributed his pastoral elegy Lycidas to a motley collection of elegies on the death of Edward King, a graduate of Christ Church drowned at sea, amplifying the theme into a reflection on the question of the existence of evil and Divine providence.

Travel
He then set off for the Continent, visiting France, where he met Hugo Grotius, and Italy, where he was welcomed into the neo-Platonic academies at Florence, and quickly established his reputation as ‘al grande poeta Inghilese, Giovanni Milton, Londra’ with the quality of his Latin and Italian verse. He visited Rome and then Naples, where he was favoured with the attentions of Giovanni Battista Manso, who had been the friend and protector of Torquato Tasso. Returning to Florence, he found and visited the famous Galileo, at that time old and placed under effective house arrest by the Inquisition. He stayed for a month in Venice, from whence he shipped home the books and volumes of music he had collected during his year in Italy. On his way home to England he paid a visit to Geneva, where he met the father of his friend, Charles Diodati, and heard of his friend’s death the previous year.

The schoolmaster
Back in England by 1639 (31), he set up a school, at first taking the two young sons of his recently deceased sister as students, then the sons of friends and noblemen.

Marriage
In 1642 (34) he married Mary Powell, the 17 year old daughter of a family to whom Milton’s father had lent money some years previously, and from whom Milton himself was receiving interest of £24 per annum on the loan. She stayed with him for only three weeks, however, leaving to make a visit to her parents at Forest Hill, near Oxford, and failing to return. She also failed to respond to his several letters, and, when he sent a servant to enquire after her, his servant was rudely rebuffed. It is possible that the outbreak of Civil War at this time made her return more difficult, and it is certainly true that his wife’s family were staunch Royalists, while Milton’s sympathies lay with the Parliamentarians, for whom he became an important pamphleteer and apologist.

Pamphlets
His pamphleteering was highly successful, and he was extraordinarily adept at patiently taking his opponents’ arguments to pieces in a dispassionate way, thereby nullifying their emotive energy. He also wielded the calculated insult with a deft superiority of wit and erudition which few could match. In 1643 (35) he published a pamphlet in favour of divorce on grounds of incompatibility, the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. It was promptly attacked by another pamphleteer, and Milton penned Colasterion in reply, in which he observed : ‘I mean not to dispute philosophy with this pork, who never read any’.

Further poetry
He published a volume of his poems, Poems both in English and Latin, in 1645 (37) through Humphrey Mosely, who had recently published Edmund Waller with great success, but sales were slow, and the book did not establish his reputation.

His wife returns
His wife returned to him in the same year, and she thereafter bore him 4 children before she died giving birth.

More pamphlets
His pamphlet, On the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649, 41), published just before the execution of Charles I, gave grounds for regicide. He argued that men are born free, and that the power of kings is derivative, committed to them in trust by the people for the common good. If a king acted as a tyrant it was, therefore, perfectly justifiable to depose him, statements which were at complete odds with Charles I’s view that kings ruled by divine right.

Official appointment in Cromwell's government
He was appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues to Cromwell’s Council of State, which involved him in the day to day affairs of government, and in its dealings with foreign powers, and he was given the task of replying to the Eikon Basilike (the Royal Image), a eulogising pamphlet which had appeared soon after the execution of the king. Milton replied with the Eikonoklastes (the Image Breaker), taking apart the rosy picture painted by the Eikon, and enumerating Charles’ faults in a dispassionate and matter of fact way. Later in the same year another pamphlet, Defensio Regia contra Populum Anglicanum (A Defense of the King against the People of England) appeared, this time originating on the Continent, and written by the noted scholar Salmasius. Milton was again asked to reply, and his Defensio Populi Anglicani etc (Defense of the People of England) followed. Salmasius himself died shortly afterwards, and it was left open to Milton to claim unopposed that he had broken his opponent by his arguments. A response to Milton’s Defensio Populi appeared, written by an Anglican clergyman. The Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Coelum (The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven) was full of personal abuse towards Milton himself, and he took delight in replying with Defensio Secundo, in which he wrote extensively about himself in a humane and sympathetic way which made the abuse of his adversary seem ludicrous, malicious and misguided.

Blindness
But in the course of his work for the government, his eyesight had begun to fail, and by 1651 (43) he was completely blind.

Second marriage
He nevertheless continued to work as Latin Secretary, and in 1656 (48) he married Katherine Woodcock, who bore him a son in 1657 (49). Both mother and son died shortly after the birth, however. His sonnet, Methought I saw My Late Espousèd Saint, refers to this Katherine.

Death of Cromwell and restoration of the monarchy
Cromwell died in 1658 (50), and was given a state funeral, only for his body to be dug up and hoisted on the gibbet at Tyburn at the restoration of the monarchy in 1661 (53). Milton went into hiding, and, when found, was briefly imprisoned.

Paradise Lost
His major work, Paradise Lost, was issued in ten books in 1667 (59).

Third marriage
He married again in 1663 (55) to Elizabeth Minshull, who was 24 at the time.

Final poetry
His final poetic works, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, were published in 1671 (63).

Death
He ended his days in a small house near Bunhill Fields, alone with his wife and a maid. He died in 1674 (66) without pain or emotion, according to testimony at the time no one in the room noticing his passing.

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Allama Iqbal's Biography


Birth

Iqbal was born in the Punjab on November 9, 1877. His ancestors, who were Kashmiri Brahmins, had embraced Islam two hundred years earlier. Iqbal’s own father was a devout Muslim with Sufistic bent of mind.

Primary Education

He received his early education in Sialkot. After passing the entrance examination, he joined Intermediary College. Mir Hassan, a great oriental scholar, had a special aptitude for imparting his own literary taste and to his students. Under his influence, Iqbal was drawn towards Islamic studies, which he regarded to be an outstanding favor that he could not forget it all his life.

Higher Education

Passing on to the Government College of Lahore, Iqbal did his graduation with English Literature, Philosophy and Arabic as his subjects. At the college he met Prof. Arnold and Sir Abdul Qadir. Iqbal’s poem, Chand (moon) and other early poems appeared in the journal (which belonged to Sir Abdul Qadir) in 1901 and were acclaimed by critics as cutting a new path in Urdu poetry.

It did not take him long to win recognition as a rising star on the firmament of Urdu literature.

In the mean time he had done his MA in Philosophy and was appointed as a Lecturer in History, Philosophy and Political science at Oriental College, Lahore. He then moved to Government College to teach Philosophy and English Literature.

Wherever Iqbal worked or thought his versatility and scholarship made a deep impression on those around him.

[COLOR="rgb(153, 50, 204)"]In Europe[/COLOR]

Iqbal proceeded to Europe for higher studies in 1905 and stayed there for three years. He took the Honors Degree in Philosophy and taught Arabic at the Cambridge University in the absence of Prof. Arnold. From England, he went to Germany to do his doctorate in Philosophy from Munich and then returned to London to qualify for the bar. He also served as a teacher in the London school of Commerce and passed the Honors Examination in Economics and Political Science. During his stay in Europe Iqbal not only read voraciously but also wrote and lectured on Islamic subjects which added to his popularity and fame in literary circles.

Back in India

Iqbal returned to India in 1908. The poet had won all these academic laurels by the time he was 32 or 33. He practiced as a lawyer from 1908 to 1934, when ill health compelled him to give up his practice. In fact, his heart was not in it and he devoted more time to philosophy and literature than to legal profession.

He attended the meetings of Anjuman Himayat-I-Islam regularly at Lahore. The epoch making poems, Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa, which he read out in the annual convention of it one year after another, sparkled with the glow of his genius and made him immensely popular. They became the national songs of Millet.

Iqbal’s other poems Tarana-e-Hind (The Indian anthem) and Tarana-e-Milli (the Muslim Anthem) also became very popular among masses and used to be sung as symbols of National or Muslim identity at public meetings.

The spirit of Change

The Balkan wars and the Battle of Tripoli, in 1910, shook Iqbal powerfully and inflicted a deep wound upon his heart. In his mood of anger and frustration, he wrote a number of stirring poems, which together with portraying the anguish of Muslims were severely critical of the West.

The spirit of change is evident in poems like Bilad-e-Islamia (the lands of Islam), Wataniat (Nationalism), Muslim, Fatima Bint Abdullah (who was killed in the siege of Cyrainca, Siddiq, Bilal, Tahzib-e-Hazir (Modern civilization) and Huzoor-e-Risalat Maab Mein (in the presence of Sacred Prophet).

In these poems, Iqbal deplores the attitude of Muslim leaders who lay a claim to Islamic leadership and yet are devoid of a genuine spiritual attachment to the blessed Prophet.

The turning point in Iqbal’s Life

Iqbal was shaken by the tragic events of World War I and the disaster the Muslims had to face. The genius had passed through the formative period. He had attained maturity as a poet, thinker, seer and crusader who could read the signs of tomorrow in the happenings of today, make predictions, present hard facts and unravel abstruse truths through the medium of poetry and ignite the flame of faith, Selfhood and courage by his own intensity of feeling and force of expression. Khizr-e-Raah (The Guide) occupies the place of pride among the poems he wrote during this period. Bang-e-Dara (The caravan bell) published in 1929 has held a place of honor in Urdu poetry and world poetry.

Iqbal preferred Persian for poetic expression because its circle was wider than that of Urdu in Muslim India. His Persian works, Asrar-e-khudi (Secrets of the self), Rumuz-e-Bekhudi (Mysteries of Selflessness), Payam-e-Mashriq (Message of the East), Javed Nama (The Song of Eternity) belong to the same period of his life. And so is Reconstruction of Religious Thoughts in Islam, which was extensively appreciated and translated into many languages. Academies were set up in Italy and Germany for the study of Iqbal’s poetry and philosophy.

Politics

In 1927 the poet was elected to the Punjab Legislative assembly. In 1930, he was elected to preside over at the annual session of Muslim League. In his presidential address at Allahabad, Iqbal for the first time introduced the idea of Pakistan. In 1930-31, he attended the Round Table conference, which met in London to frame a constitution for India.

In Spain

While in England, Iqbal accepted the hospitality of Spain. He also went to Cordoba and had the distinction of being the first Muslim to offer prayers at its historical mosque after the exile of Moors. Memories of the past glory of Arabs and their 800-year rule over Spain were revived in his mind and his emotions were aroused by what he saw.

Meeting with Mussolini

In Italy Iqbal was received by Mussolini who had read some of his works and was aquatinted with his philosophy. They had long meetings and talked freely to each other.

The Universities of Cambridge, Rome and Madrid and the Roman Royal society organized meetings in his honor. On his way back he also went to Jerusalem to attend the International Conference of Motamar-i-Isalami.

In Afghanistan

At the invitation of King Nadir Shah, Iqbal visited Afghanistan in 1932. The king received the poet with great honor and met hi privately, as well during which he laid bare his heart. The two talked and wept.

Iqbal’s Death

The last phase of Iqbal’s life was embittered with constant illness. But as regards his creative activities this product was most productive. He kept in touch with every question of the day and continued composing beautiful verses.

A few minutes before his death he recited these touching lines:

The departed melody may return or not!

The zephyr from Hijaz may blow again or not!

The days of this Faqir has come to an end,

Another seer may come or not!

Although Iqbal’s was long and protracted the end was sudden and verypeaceful. He breathed his last in the early hours of April 21, 1938, in the arms of his old and devoted servant, leaving behind a host of mourners all over the Islamic world. There was a faint smile playing on his lips, which irresistibly reminded one of the last criterions, which he laid down for a truthful Muslim.

I tell you the sign of a Mumin-

When death comes there is smile on his lips.

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Thomas Edison



Full name: Thomas Alva Edison

Born: February 11, 1847; Milan, Ohio, United States

Died: October 18, 1931; Fort Myers, Florida

Who was he: Inventor and businessman

Notable inventions: Light bulb

First patent: 21 years old (electric vote recorder)

Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. His parents were Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. and Nancy Matthews Elliott. Thomas was their seventh child.

Edison started school late due to childhood illness. His mind often wandered and his teacher Alexander Crawford often called him "addled". He was kicked out of school three months after starting. Edison was then home-schooled by his mother, who was previously a teacher. She encouraged and taught him to read and experiment. Many of his lessons came from reading R.G. Parker's School of natural philosophy.





Edison's life in Port Huron was bitter. He was partially deaf since a young age, and became became a telegraph operator after he saved Jimmie Mackenzie from being struck by a runaway train. Jimmie's father, station agent J.U. Mackenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he took Edison as an apprentice and trained him as a telegraph operator. Edison's deafness helped him as it blocked out noises and prevented Edison from hearing the telegrapher sitting next to him.

One of Edison's mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the then broke youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey home.

On December 25, 1871, he married Mary Stilwell, and they had three children, Marion Estelle Edison, Thomas Alva Edison, Jr., and William Leslie Edison. His wife Mary died in 1884. On February 24, 1886, he married 19 year old Mina Miller. They had an additional three children, Madeleine Edison, Charles Edison (who took over the company upon his father's death) and Theodore Edison.

Thomas Edison died on Oct. 18th, 1931 in New Jersey at the age of 84 years.

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A Brief Biography of George Washington


Washington's Early Life

Life began for Washington on February 22, 1732 on his father’s plantation on Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia, as the son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball. It wouldn’t be until 1752, when Washington’s half-brother, Lawrence Washington, died that George Washington would inherit Mount Vernon. And it was only after his marriage to the wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis that he was able to rise to the highest echelons of Virginia’s planter society.

Although there is much that is unknown about Washington’s childhood, some events and influences stand out. He spent most of his youth on Ferry Farm, a plantation on the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, Virginia. His father died when he was 11. And despite popular lore, he never chopped down a cherry tree nor did he deliver the famous “I cannot tell a lie” line.

Washington was not formally educated past the approximate age of 15. At age 17 he became a surveyor on the Virginia frontier.

The Beginning of a Military Career

In 1753 France and Great Britain were vying for sovereignty of a vast area known as the Ohio Territory. In late autumn of that year, Washington volunteered, along with his guide, Christopher Gist, to undertake a dangerous mission to deliver an ultimatum from Virginia’s Governor Dinwiddie, demanding that the French abandon the region. On Washington’s return trip to Virginia, he narrowly escaped death after falling from a raft into the Allegheny River’s icy water.

Washington kept a journal of his adventures, which was later published, causing a sensation in the colonies and abroad.

In 1755 Washington accompanied British Major General Edward Braddock on a mission to drive the French from the Ohio Valley once and for all. But in a surprise attack, French and Indian forces killed Braddock and most of his officers. Braving both enemy and friendly fire, Washington rescued the remaining British troops and led them to safety. Word of his heroism spread, and he was placed in charge of all the Virginia forces. In 1758 he resigned his commission, returned home to Mount Vernon, and married Martha Custis.

Farming, Politics, and the Revolution

Farming was George Washington’s passion, and he had a talent for agricultural innovation. In the 1760s he transitioned his cash crop from tobacco to wheat – quite a move for a planter in tobacco-centric Virginia. Washington also experimented with crop rotation and livestock breeding, invented a 16-sided treading barn, and opened a gristmill, distillery and commercial fishery. By the time of his death in 1799, Washington had expanded his farm from 2,000 to 8,000 acres.

By 1758 Washington was engaged in colonial politics and was elected to Virginia’s House of Burgesses. All the while, he became increasingly resentful of British economic forces at play in both his personal finances and those of the colonies. In the fall of 1774 he traveled to Philadelphia as one of seven Virginia representatives to the Continental Congress. In 1775 the Revolutionary War broke out between the American colonies and Great Britain, and Washington was unanimously elected commander in chief of the Continental Army. When he arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts to take command of the American forces, battles had already been fought at Lexington and Concord, and the British were occupying Boston. The Americans were outnumbered ten to one and sorely lacking in funding, arms, training and supplies.

The highlights, both good and bad, of Washington’s tenure as commander of the Continental Army included the early British takeover of New York, which was counterbalanced by Washington’s famous Christmas night crossing of the Delaware in 1776, when his men won the Battle of Trenton, New Jersey. Washington’s attempts to defend Philadelphia were crushed at the Battle of Brandywine and an American counterattack at nearby Germantown also failed. The Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey resulted in a standoff. Finally, in 1781, with considerable help from French allies, the Americans victoriously attacked the British at Yorktown, marking the end to the Revolutionary War. The world was in awe.

In one of his finest moments, Washington resigned his commission in 1783, giving up power when he could have usurped it. Washington returned home to Mount Vernon with the expectation that his days of public service were over.

But the weak state of the union under the Articles of Confederation began to trouble Washington more and more. In 1787 he traveled to Philadelphia where his sterling reputation and austere manner helped to usher through a totally new constitution. In 1789 he was elected as the nation’s first president.

Presidency

George Washington’s first term in office was dominated by shaping the role of the president. He appointed the first presidential cabinet, oversaw measures that Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton encouraged for solid financial grounding, and designated a site for the nation’s new capital.

Washington’s second term centered on foreign affairs, and he wisely let his preference for neutrality be known. He dealt firmly with the Whiskey Rebellion and sent Chief Justice John Jay to England to negotiate an unpopular peace treaty with the British. He also asserted his distaste for emerging political parties, which were coming to dominate the American system of government.

Retirement

By 1796, no amount of persuading could keep Washington away from Mount Vernon. He refused a third term as president and retired in 1797. In 1799, after being caught in a sleet and snow storm while riding on horseback across the farm he loved so well, Washington developed a severe throat infection that resulted in his death on December 14. The nation mourned the loss of its greatest leader, but his legacy would, in the prophetic words of a eulogizing Henry Lee, “endure in the hearts of his countrymen."

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President Thomas Jefferson


Thomas Jefferson, the man who became the third president of the fledgling United States of America, the author of the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and the father of the University of Virginia, was born to Peter Jefferson, a citizen of Welsh origins who wielded a large amount of influence in Albemarle County, Virginia, and his wife Jane Randolph on 2 April 1743. Thomas was the third of ten children.

When his father died in 1757, he left "orders" that Thomas complete his education. Thomas, heeding the words of his father, entered the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg in 1760. Jefferson would later credit one of his math professors, a man by the name of Dr. Small, as being one of his biggest inspirations to excel in school. Peter Jefferson had also encouraged his children to pursue musical studies. Thomas was a talented violinist who played often at the weekly parties hosted by the Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier. It was through his interaction with Fauquier that Jefferson learned about the social, political, and parliamentary life of Europe which heavily influenced that in America.

After graduating from William and Mary, Jefferson studied law and in April 1764, after his 21st birthday, Jefferson assumed the management of his fathers estate and extensive lands. He was also named vestryman and a justice of the peace, positions he more or less inherited from his father. At this time, Jefferson developed his zeal for farming; an obsession that he would sustain for the rest of his life. Jefferson always believed that the United States should build its economy on agriculture, and not on industry. He simultaneously continued his studies of the law, which lead him to the writings of Lord Coke, a respected Whig party member who espoused the idea of religious freedom. Lord Coke's writings inspired Jefferson to reject Nathan Hale's assertion that Christianity was an inherent part of the laws in England, which inspired him in later years to write the Statute for Religions Freedom.

Patrick Henry also heavily influenced Jefferson's opinions and decision to enter politics. Jefferson was present at the Virginia House of Burgess meetings when Henry called for equal rights for British citizens living in America, emphasizing the entitlement to representation if the colonists would be paying the King's taxes.

In 1767, Jefferson was admitted to the bar of Virginia, and in 1769, construction on Monticello, Jefferson's "autobiographical masterpiece" began. On 11 May 1769, Jefferson joined the Virginia House of Burgesses; five days later then-Governor Boutetourt dissolved the house which was developing the resolutions to demand representation in the English government. The house reconvened at a tavern and passed the resolution anyway.

On 1 Jan 1772, Jefferson married Martha Skelton. That year, Jefferson designed and initially planted the gardens at Monticello and began inventing. He concurrently operated his law practice, which was greatly supported by the many family friends that turned to him for his legal assistance. He practiced law for 8 years before stopping to participate in the American Revolution in June of 1775.

Virginia had prepared to fight in the war, beginning in March, when Patrick Henry declared "We must fight!" a declaration which came 27 days before the first shots of the war were fired at Lexington. Jefferson left Charlottesville in June to go to Philadelphia, where he assumed George Washington's seat on Congress when Washington left to serve as a General for the revolutionaries. In May 1776, Jefferson learned that the delegates in Virginia voted unanimously for independence and on 10 June 1776, Jefferson, known for his elegant writing more than his oratory skills, began drafting the Declaration of Independence with Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingstone, and Roger Sherman. After Congress signed the Declaration on 4 July 1776, Jefferson resigned from the Continental Congress and returned to Virginia to rejoin the state Legislature to which he was recently re-elected, and to be nearer to his wife, who had now given birth to several children.

On 8 October 1776, Jefferson the country again called on Jefferson to serve in its name, nominating him as the U.S. Representative to Paris. Jefferson declined the appointment to stay in Virginia to continue his service in the legislature. The continuing war destroyed many valuable tobacco crops which Jefferson cultivated, causing huge financial losses for him. Jefferson stepped down from his position, believing that the government should have someone with military experience in charge while engaged in a war, and General Thomas Nelson assumed his office. In 1779, Jefferson served as Governor of Virginia, during which time he composed the bill which would become the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom. The bill did not become law in 1786. In 1782, Jefferson's wife Martha died, leaving him with four daughters.

In 1783, Jefferson was elected to the new national congress and he went to Annapolis to assume his office. During this term, Jefferson created the decimal system for currency that is still in use. On 5 July 1784 Jefferson became plenipotentiary to France as an assistant to Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in their negotiations for commercial treaties with the French. He succeeded Franklin as the sole plenipotentiary to France in May of 1785, a position in which he served for three years. Jefferson returned from Europe in 1788, at which time he returned to Virginia to spend some time with his three remaining daughters. His youngest, Lucy, had died during his stay in France. Shortly afterwards, in 1789, George Washington, the new president appointed Jefferson to serve as his Secretary of State. His service was heavily criticized by opponents led by Alexander Hamilton, and Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State in 1794. He then announced his retirement from public life.

In 1796, however, the country again turned to Jefferson for leadership, nominating him to run for President. Jefferson lost by three electoral votes, which under the law of the time awarded him the office of vice president to vanquishing opponent, John Adams. Jefferson had originally agreed to return to public life because of his opposition to the Jay Treaty of 1795. The treaty negotiated commercial rights between the United States and Britain, but caused an uproar in the United States, which felt that John Jay had made too many concessions to the crown. Jefferson felt that without the treaty, the United States could have secured recognition of the neutral rights for itself.

In 1801, the electoral college voted Jefferson president. During his first term, Jefferson doubled the size of the country through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. He contributed to the worldwide scientific community through the Lewis and Clark expedition which began with preparations after congressional approval in 1802, and ended upon the return of the Corps of Discovery in 1806. Jefferson eliminated the whiskey tax, reduced the national deficit, and defeated the Barbary Pirates who were harassing American commercial ships in the Mediterranean. Jefferson was re-elected in 1804 and spent most of his second term protecting the neutral rights of American merchants from the British and French. He attempted to prevent the U.S. involvement in the Napoleonic Wars by imposing an embargo on American shipping. The embargo was unpopular and did not work very well. Jefferson left office in 1809, succeeded by his Secretary of State, James Madison.

Jefferson officially retired from public life in extreme debt. He went back to Monticello to live out the rest of the days, during which time he designed and oversaw the construction of the University of Virginia, beginning in 1819. The University opened in 1825. He obtained money through the assistance of friends who still held official positions. They organized fundraisers for the former president and lobbied to his creditors to forgive his debts. Jefferson died on 4 July 1826, exactly 50 years after he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Ironically enough, John Adams died later the same day, and his last words were "Thomas Jefferson still lives." Jefferson is buried at Monticello, marked by a gravestone displaying the inscription: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia. Born April 2 1743 Died July 4 1826."

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