【美国精神】第62期

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Explanation:

  There is a funny story that shows how many Americans think of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. One day, President John F. Kennedy (our thirty-fifth president) was in the White House, which is the building where the U.S. president lives. He was there with 49 Nobel Prize winners. (The Nobel Prize is an award given to people who have done very important work in different fields all over the world.) President Kennedy said that this was the greatest group of human knowledge and talent that had ever been together in the White House, except when Thomas Jefferson ate there alone. This was his funny way of saying that Thomas Jefferson was a great man in American history who was good at many things, much more than other people, even a group of some of the world’s smartest people!

  Thomas Jefferson is famous for many things. He was the second vice-president and the third president of the United States, but he is even better known for having written the Declaration¹ of Independence, or the letter that was written to let Great Britain know that its colonies² had become the United States, an independent country. Thomas Jefferson was one of the most influential³ Founding Fathers (meaning he was able to affect other people’s opinions) who helped to create the United States. While he was president, he sent two men named Lewis and Clark to explore the western part of North America. He also negotiated⁴ (or arranged) the Louisiana Purchase, which allowed the United States to buy a lot of land from France.

  Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 and was a Renaissance⁵ man, which means he was a man who has a lot of different types of knowledge and knows how to do many different things. He was a gardener, a politician, an author, an architect (or someone who designed buildings), and an inventor (or a person who makes new things that no one else had thought of before). He was the founder⁶ of (or the person who started) the University of Virginia.

  Thomas Jefferson built a home called Monticello in Virginia. It is still there today, and many people go to visit it and learn more about this great man. At Monticello, people can see his architectural designs and many of his inventions, like automatic⁷ doors (or doors that open without being touched) and the swivel chair (or a chair that turns in circles while a person is sitting on it).

 

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