In 1819, just down the road, John Adams did the unthinkable: formally accusing his old frenemy Thomas Jefferson of plagiarizing North Carolina’s declaration of independence from May 20, 1775 (a date still emblazoned on the NC state flag) when crafting his own, slightly more famous document a year later in Philadelphia. Adams had receipts, and he begged historians to “investigate further.” Two centuries later, with the support of David McCullough, Ken Burns, Andrew Roberts, Sharon McMahon and others, author and former longtime ESPN senior writer David Fleming answered Adam’s call, embarking on a global (and often hilarious) quest to uncover a secret document that unravels the origin story of America and reveals the intellectual crime of the millennia.
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