John Adams was vain, argumentative, jealous, tactless, and almost universally disliked by his colleagues. He was also indispensable. He pushed the Continental Congress toward independence when others hesitated, nominated Washington to lead the army, secured the Dutch loans that financed the Revolution, and served as the first vice president and second president of a nation that never properly thanked him. Adams was the Founding Father nobody wanted to be around and nobody could do without.

This episode traces Adams from his Massachusetts farm through the independence debate, the diplomatic missions, the presidency, and the extraordinary late-life correspondence with Jefferson that ended on the same Fourth of July they both died.

• Adams’s difficult personality and why his abrasiveness was essential to the independence movement
• The nomination of Washington, the push for the Declaration, and the diplomacy that funded the war
• The presidency — the Alien and Sedition Acts, the quasi-war with France, and the peaceful transfer of power
• The reconciliation with Jefferson and their deaths on the same Fourth of July, 1826