John Paul Jones: Seven Things You Should Know

Every year, a wreath is laid at a marble tomb in the crypt beneath the U.S. Naval Academy chapel - modeled on Napoleon's, honoring the man they call the Father of the American Navy. But the real John Paul Jones is stranger and more interesting than the marble suggests.He wasn't born with that name - he was fleeing a killing when he took it. He picked fights with nearly everyone whose help he needed. He led the only armed raid on British soil in the whole Revolutionary War, and it barely worked. He won the most famous naval battle in American history while his own crew tried to surrender behind his back. He ended his career in disgrace as a Russian admiral. And the legend we know today was built more than a century after he died, by a Gilded Age ambassador and a president who needed a hero and found one, remarkably well preserved, in a forgotten Paris grave.I'm No Expert, But is a series for curious people who want the real story without the homework. In thirty to forty-five minutes, you'll learn seven genuinely surprising things about John Paul Jones - presented plainly, sourced carefully, and without a verdict imposed on you. You'll come away smarter than when you started, and maybe a little more skeptical of every tomb you pass.