John Adams

John Adams was a Founding Father and the second president of the United States, serving from 1797 to 1801 after two terms as its first vice president. A Massachusetts lawyer, he defended British soldiers charged after the Boston Massacre, and as a delegate to the Continental Congress helped Thomas Jefferson draft the Declaration of Independence. He was a diplomat in France and the Netherlands during the Revolutionary War and the first United States ambassador to Great Britain. As president he signed the Alien and Sedition Acts and fought an undeclared naval war with France, losing the election of 1800 to Jefferson. He died in 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration.