Which two former US presidents died on July 4, 1826?

The two former U.S. presidents who died on July 4, 1826, were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Their deaths occurred exactly 50 years after the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. Adams, the second president, died at his home in Quincy, Massachusetts. Jefferson, the third president and principal drafter of the Declaration, died at Monticello in Virginia.

The coincidence was especially striking because Adams and Jefferson had both been central figures in the Revolution, then political allies, rivals, and eventually correspondents again late in life. Jefferson died earlier in the day, but news traveled too slowly to reach Adams before Adams died.

A famous account says Adams’s final words included “Thomas Jefferson survives,” although the precise wording is debated. The event is often confused with James Monroe, the fifth president, who also died on July 4—but in 1831, five years later.