Documentary on the life and times of "founding father" Thomas Jefferson plus the film 1776, a classic musical from the early 1970s that chronicles the events surrounding the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. Compare the musical - which is an adaptation of history, not a documentary - with the documentary History Channel's Jefferson documentary from 2010. How accurate is 1776? How does it approach historical subject matter differently than the documentary? What type of analysis and information were the historians featured in the documentary able to provide that the 1776 filmmakers could not? What events/facts/ideas are commonly considered key when it comes to telling the story of the Fourth of July and the signing of the Declaration of Independence? Do these video presentations cover those key things? Pay special attention to Jefferson's role, and the philosophies that undergirded his Declaration and the discussions surrounding independence.

Documentary on the life and times of "founding father" Thomas Jefferson plus the film 1776, a classic musical from the early 1970s that chronicles the events surrounding the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. Compare the musical - which is an adaptation of history, not a documentary - with the documentary History Channel's Jefferson documentary from 2010. How accurate is 1776? How does it approach historical subject matter differently than the documentary? What type of analysis and information were the historians featured in the documentary able to provide that the 1776 filmmakers could not? What events/facts/ideas are commonly considered key when it comes to telling the story of the Fourth of July and the signing of the Declaration of Independence? Do these video presentations cover those key things? Pay special attention to Jefferson's role, and the philosophies that undergirded his Declaration and the discussions surrounding independence.