Both Abigail and John Adams had complicated relationships with Thomas Jefferson

Abigail and John Adams married in 1764 and maintained a decades-long partnership

Abigail Smith married John Adams on Oct. 25, 1764, beginning a partnership that would last for more than five decades. Despite long separations during the Revolution and John's diplomatic career, the two maintained a deep intellectual and personal bond throughout their lives.

Abigail Adams sailed to Europe to join John during his diplomatic posting in Paris in 1784

This podcast chronicles Abigail's voyage across the Atlantic to join John in Paris during his diplomatic service, then follows the couple's return to America and their rise to the White House.

Hear Abigail Adams' 1786 letters—reporting from London on politics and society

This podcast brings to life a letter Abigail wrote to her son John Quincy in February 1786, reporting from London on dinners with wealthy South Carolinians and the relationships of her daughter Nabby—with commentary from a Massachusetts Historical Society scholar.

More than 1,100 letters between Abigail and John Adams have survived

Their correspondence is a rich collection of American history. The letters provide a personal glimpse into the Revolution, the early republic, and the dynamics of one of America's most significant marriages.

Abigail Adams was a shrewd and largely self-taught financial investor

While John was away during the Revolution and his diplomatic career, Adams managed the family's finances and investments skillfully. When John urged her to buy farmland in 1783, she refused—investing instead in government bonds and earning up to 25% annually, compared to his farmland's 1%.

Read biographies of 3 generations of the Adams family

The Massachusetts Historical Society provides biographical profiles covering three generations of the Adams family—using its extensive archive of family papers and correspondence to trace one of the most notable dynasties in American political history.

Laura Linney played Abigail Adams in HBO's acclaimed 2008 miniseries 'John Adams'

HBO's 2008 miniseries "John Adams" cast Laura Linney as Abigail, depicting her as the moral and intellectual force behind her husband's career. This podcast revisits the series, covering the Boston Massacre, the Continental Congress, and Abigail's important role in the Revolution.

Adams was a vocal opponent of slavery during the Revolutionary era

In letters written during the Revolution, Adams clearly opposed slavery—calling it an unjust scheme and highlighting the contradiction of fighting for freedom while enslaving others. Read it in her own words here in a letter to John Adams.

Adams had a deep contempt for Alexander Hamilton

Adams regarded him as dangerously ambitious and untrustworthy. Her letters are among the most vivid contemporary assessments of Hamilton, providing a portrait of one of the founding era's most contentious figures.

See how the Declaration evolved from draft to final text

John Adams urged Congress to choose Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration because of his literary skill and low-profile reputation. Read Jefferson’s initial draft, which included passages later removed, including a forceful denunciation of slavery.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

The conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson was primarily over federalism

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson clashed over how power should be divided in the new republic—Hamilton favoring a strong national government with broad implied powers, and Jefferson warning that such authority would erode state power and threaten republican liberty.

John Marshall gained national prominence during the XYZ Affair

In 1797, President John Adams sent Marshall to France amid seizures of American ships. French intermediaries demanded loans and bribes before talks, and Marshall refused. Publication of the dispatches fueled the Quasi-War and elevated his reputation in the United States.

The Americans abandoned Philadelphia to the British in 1777

While George Washington's army was encamped in Valley Forge, the British took over the capital of Philadelphia (and the colonies, at the time), including Ben Franklin's house. It wouldn't last long. This is one of a series of podcast episodes exploring the war's battles.

Aaron Burr introduced James Madison to his future wife, Dolley

This trivia celebrating James Madison's birthday notes that Aaron Burr—later vice president and Alexander Hamilton's dueling rival—introduced Madison to Dolley Madison in 1794. It also highlights that Madison arrived 11 days early to the Constitutional Convention to prepare.

Learn about the relationship between Thomas Edison and Henry Ford

Despite their 16-year age difference, legendary inventor Thomas Edison and Henry Ford developed a close relationship after meeting at a convention in New York. The two—alongside environmentalist John Burroughs and Harvey Firestone, the founder of Firestone Tire—were known as the "Four Vagabonds" and were famous for their long roadtrips, which were often highly publicized.

Hear the stories of some of the 577 people enslaved at Mount Vernon

Washington inherited his first slaves at age 11 and enslaved 123 people at the time of his death. This eight-part podcast traces the lives of eight of them, using their stories to examine how slavery complicates Washington's legacy today.

Hear how the US and Iran went from close allies to bitter adversaries after the 1979 revolution

Covering five decades of conflict and diplomacy, this podcast examines key flashpoints—from the Iran-Iraq War and the 1983 Beirut bombings to Iran's use of proxy forces and cyberattacks—offering insight into one of the most consequential and complex rivalries in modern geopolitics.

An adultery and poisoning case examined whether federal treaty power supersedes state law

This Radiolab podcast unpacks Bond v. United States, where a local love-triangle assault became a federal case under an international treaty—forcing the Supreme Court to confront a founding question: How far can federal power reach into crimes traditionally handled by the states?

Bezos owned roughly 8% of Amazon as of 2025

Three decades after founding Amazon, Jeff Bezos has built a sprawling empire of businesses and financial interests. Other large stakeholders in the company include Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy and Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott. This article provides more details on who owns how much of Amazon.

The US president who had the most children

John Tyler, America’s 10th president, was born in 1790, yet still has one living grandchild. This bizarre phenomenon can be explained by his 15 children, which he had throughout all stages of his adult life. Tyler had eight children with one wife and seven with another, leading him to hold the title as the US president with the most children. Tyler was also the first US president to get married while in office.

A profile of Dickinson's ambiguous but close relationship with Susan Gilbert

Gilbert met Dickinson in 1850, and the two women quickly became very close, with Dickinson often pining for Gilbert in letters. In this essay, critic Maria Popova calls the relationship "beautiful, heartbreaking, unclassifiable," and details how it came to inspire Dickinson's writing, even after Gilbert married Dickinson's brother.

Caesar and Cleopatra's complicated affair

The Egyptian queen Cleopatra, a known charmer in history, had a public affair with Roman leader Julius Caesar. Read this article for details and a timeline of their doomed romance—from their first meeting to her later affair with Marc Antony.

James Beard and Julia Child were close friends and collaborators

The duo met when she was promoting her seminal book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in 1961. They quickly bonded, even referring to themselves as “Jiji,” a combination of Julia and Jim. Child, though, was initially prejudiced against Beard for being openly gay, which was rarer at that time.

Y Combinator Cofounder Jessica Livingston once interviewed her husband and cofounder, Paul Graham

Two of Y Combinator’s cofounders, Jessica Livingston and Paul Graham, were in a romantic relationship before they started the accelerator. They later married, and much later, Livingston started a podcast. In an episode of her podcast, Livingston and her cohost interview Graham about the beginning of YC and more.

A teenage Springsteen struggled with his father

Springsteen's father didn't understand why his son was interested in pursuing a music career, leading to a tense relationship that was often exacerbated by his father's struggles with mental illness. Embed: Podcast

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.