On July 4th, 1776...

...how old were the Founding Fathers?  These ages surprised me greatly – somehow, in all my history reading, I'd never quite grasped this:

Marquis de Lafayette	18
James Monroe	18
Gilbert Stuart	20
Aaron Burr	20
Alexander Hamilton	21
Betsy Ross	24
James Madison	25
Thomas Jefferson	33
John Adams	40
Paul Revere	41
George Washington	44
Samuel Adams	53
Benjamin Franklin	70

I'd always imagined this group being roughly contemporaries – and I'd certainly never registered just how young some of the key thinkers were.  That list makes me feel...humbled...