A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

John Adams was one of his country's seminal Founding Fathers and one of its most experienced, distinguished diplomats and politicians. Few men in American history have a record anywhere near comparable, but one of them happened to be Adams's own son, John Quincy Adams. And yet, few Americans are familiar with him aside from the fact that he was his father's son and the sixth president of the United States.

John Quincy Adams set a lot of firsts for his country. In addition to being the first son of a president to become president himself, John Quincy Adams also managed to be a US senator, a US House representative, a secretary of state, and an ambassador to several countries. Though he is known primarily for his presidential races against Andrew Jackson, there is a general consensus among historians that he is one of America's greatest and most skilled diplomats, responsible for successes such as the Treaty of Ghent (which ended the War of 1812), the annexation of Florida from Spain, and the Monroe Doctrine.