This is a special Fourth of July Tale: one true story from history, told at the fireside, with nothing sudden in it. The story ends softly around the 48 minute mark and the summer night, crickets and warm breeze and a far off bell, continues until morning. Black screen friendly.

Chapters:
0:00 Welcome
0:49 The Same Impossible Day
4:03 Two Kinds of Weather
9:29 The Pen and the Voice
14:11 Paris, London, and a Borrowed Family
18:27 The Long Winter
23:35 The Matchmaker and the Dream
27:27 One Hundred and Fifty Eight Letters
31:50 The Fiftieth Summer
34:54 The Fourth
40:42 How the News Traveled
44:52 Drifting
48:27 The Summer Night Continues

Listen with the video on YouTube: add the episode link.

New episodes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6pm Eastern. Nights carry you inside an ordinary evening from the past. Tales, every Friday, tell one true story from history, calm enough to sleep to and interesting enough to stay up for.

🕯 Kingdoms at Dusk: https://kingdomsatdusk.com
📜 All our worlds: https://gildenmyth.com
🌙 Norse myth sleep stories, The Sleeping Almanac: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSleepingAlmanac
🕊 Goddess sleep meditations, The Tender Hour: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTenderHourChannel
🎙 David's interview podcast, Conversations That Count: https://www.youtube.com/@ConversationsThatCount-CTC
🎧 Also on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3J6lZ10GvK07qCv3aQxnkR and Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/conversations-that-count-a31f16a6-3131-4c8f-982f-19d52407e8eb/id1890348796

Sources: David McCullough, John Adams; Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power; The Adams Jefferson Letters, edited by Lester J. Cappon. Every scene comes from the letters the two men actually wrote or from the historians who spent their lives with them; where a famous line rests on family memory rather than paper, we say so out loud.

A real human voice with AI assistance, fully disclosed. No mid roll ads, ever, so nothing wakes you.