By: Alyssa

History Born: April 13 (April 2, Old Style), 1743, Shadwell, Virginia Died: July 4, 1826, Monticello, Virginia Best known as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States. He was a man of many talents--an architect, an inventor, a scientist, and a collector of books and artifacts of American history. He could read more than five languages and was the U.S. minister to France for several years.

Child Memories – Early Life – Thomas Jefferson was born April 13, 1743 to Peter and Jane Randolph Jefferson on their estate at Shadwell, in what is today Albermarle County, Virginia, along the banks of the Rivanna River. It was a significant location for an aristocratic youth in the sense that it lay within the sparsely populated Piedmont Region, between the gentrified Tidewater coastline and the Blue Ridge Mountains of the frontier.

Declaration of Independence July 2, Sixteen years ago, Morning Edition launched what has become an Independence Day tradition: hosts, reporters, newscasters and commentators reading the Declaration of Independence. The idea came from former Morning Edition director Sean Collins, who remembered seeing the Declaration and its "very powerful writing" printed on the front page of his grandmother's small-town newspaper..