No, I never knew him. However, through Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, I’ve become obsessed with not only the musical but him as well. Here are 5 things I learned through listening to the soundtrack.

1. Aaron Burr, Sir

In the second song of the soundtrack, Hamilton goes out of his way to find him because he really wanted to go to college, graduate, and join the revolution. He literally tells Aaron Burr that he punched the bursar. Hamilton knows what he wants and he is going for it.

2. The Schuyler Sisters

In this song it’s the three sisters in New York, Angelica is looking for a mind at work and wants to be a part of the revolution, in the famous line, “ and when I meet Thomas Jefferson, imma compel him to include women in the sequel” which shows that she is standing up for and women all over, empowering women all over.

3. Wait for It

In this amazing song by Leslie Odom Jr, he realizes that life is crazy and crazy stuff happens, but he also realizes that he is the only thing in life he can control, and sometimes it’s better to wait for things than to act irrationally, I like to think that in this song he realizes his potential and he is still alive for a reason.

4. The Room Where It Happens

“God help and forgive me, I wanna build something that’s gonna outlive me” This is probably one of my favorite lines, Hamilton admits that he wants to leave his mark on this world, and he did, but he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he wanted to do something important. At 3:35-3:57 Hamilton is basically like, you gotta play the game to be in the game, and isn’t ashamed of it.

5. The World Was Wide Enough

In this song, Hamilton questions his legacy, and what it would be, even in the last minutes of his life, he questions if this bullet would be his legacy. He was obsessed with it, however, this could be a good thing, because he was so obsessed with making a difference that he always thought about what he was doing.