A closer look
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams took a break from negotiating international treaties in England in 1786 to visit the former home of William Shakespeare and actively vandalize his furniture. The two prominent founding fathers of the United States of America used their pocket knives to chip off a significant piece of the legendary playwright's wooden chair to take home as an illegal souvenir. This means that the guys responsible for drafting the fundamental moral and legal framework of American democracy were also shameless tourists who thought basic museum rules simply did not apply to them. They were absolutely unwilling to settle for a simple commemorative sketch or a fancy quill pen from the gift shop. It sets a rather terrible historic precedent knowing that the architects of freedom celebrated their independence by crossing the ocean just to commit petty property damage against a dead literary icon
