moldyoldy wrote:
The surprising ages of the Founding Fathers on July 4, 1776  AUG 13 2013
For the Journal of the American Revolution, Todd Andrlik compiled a list of the ages of the key participants in the Revolutionary War as of July 4, 1776. Many of them were surprisingly young:
Marquis de Lafayette, 18
James Monroe, 18
Gilbert Stuart, 20
Aaron Burr, 20
Alexander Hamilton, 21
Betsy Ross, 24
James Madison, 25
This is kind of blowing my mind...because of the compression of history, I'd always assumed all these people were around the same age. But in thinking about it, all startups need young people...Hamilton, Lafayette, and Burr were perhaps the Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg of the War. Some more ages, just for reference:
Thomas Jefferson, 33
John Adams, 40
Paul Revere, 41
George Washington, 44
Samuel Adams, 53
I was 17 when I went into the military, during the Vietnam war. Could not v**e, could not drink, but I could die.
The surprising ages of the Founding Fathers on Jul... (
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I didn't say they couldn't fight. I said minors have not the experience to properly assess past and present, etc.
I didn't know Madison was a soldier. But he was certainly an unusually brilliant historian and logician, even at 25. Who'da known?