Dr. William Poole was travel weary. He had journeyed most of the day, over land and water and land again, all the way from Elizabeth City. As he approached the ramshackle Nags Head fishing cottage his spirits sank further, all hope of payment whipped away in a salty gust that rattled the windows and sent a rusty weathervane spinning with a squeal. He paused when they reached the shack and sighed. His daughter, Anna, shot him a look that clearly said “payment or no payment, duty calls.” She raised a pale fist and rapped sharply on the splintered wooden door. A moment later it creaked open and an old woman as weathered as the cottage itself issued them into the darkness. Dr. Poole squinted as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Slowly the room came into focus and his gaze landed upon the face of an elegantly dressed young woman - a portrait hanging on the wall. Poole felt his jaw drop slightly as recognition hit. He knew who the woman in the portrait was. Only, what in the world was she doing here? It didn’t make any sense. Or maybe it did. Let’s fix that.  

 

Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. I have a real mystery for you today, a salty 19th century Outer Banks shipwreck pirate mystery that involves the beloved missing daughter of a rather infamous man. Theodosia Burr was the only child of Aaron Burr, the scandalous vice president to third US president Thomas Jefferson and villain of the hit Broadway musical, Hamilton. We’ll get into the scandal soon and we’ll learn more about Theodosia and her mysterious disappearance but first I want to tell you where the inspiration for this episode came from. A couple of friends of mine set up a walking tour called Outer Lore, they have two actually, one on Roanoke Island and the other on Ocracoke Island, both places with incredibly rich histories. It’s a self guided walking tour, and here, I’ll just let my friend Chris tell you about it. 

 

[Chris]

 

Not a sponsor, it’s just genuinely a really really cool thing if you live on the Outer Banks or if you ever plan to visit, which you totally should. Roanoke Island of Lost Colony fame, Ocracoke of Blackbeard fame, but honestly there’s just an incredible amount of interesting history and lore on the Outer Banks in general. It’s paradise for history lovers. I will put the Outer Lore link in the description of this episode if you want to check it out. They’re doing a really cool thing. You guys would love it. 

 

So I heard the Theodosia story when I did the Outer Lore tour, but before that, I was somewhat familiar with the story because my sister Hannah Bunn West, who is an extremely talented writer actually won a short story contest with a really cool fictional rendition of the story that I’ve persuaded her to read aloud for us and I’m going to put that on the Patreon for you to enjoy. 

 

So all kinds of awesome ways to consume the story of Theodosia Burr, now, allow me tell you my take on it, after doing some pretty extensive research. Theodosia Bartow Burr was born in Albany, New York in 1783. But let’s go back even farther. Theodosia’s father, Aaron Burr, served in the Revolutionary War. And it was during that service that he met Theodosia Bartow Provost. She was 10 years older than him and she was married to a British officer named Jacques Marcus Provost. But Burr was smitten. Theodosia was well read and well educated. She was incredibly intelligent and witty and this appealed to him which is not typical for the 1700s. At that time, it was not necessarily an attractive trait for women to be intelligent. Despite their actual intellect, women tried to come across as simple and naive in the presence of men. Because this is what men wanted. But not Aaron Burr. He had a different view of women that was well before its time. He read Mary Wollstonecraft’s book, Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy written by a British women’s rights activist in the late 1700s which is incredibly early for women's rights activism. So Burr respected and admired intelligence in women and so he was drawn to Theodosia Bartow Provost. Now, lucky for him, her husband was killed in the Revolutionary War and he married Theodosia, now a widow, soon after. Theodosia already had 5 children with her late husband, according to a couple of sources, who were adopted by Burr and together, the couple had four more children, Theodosia, two stillborn boys, and Sally who died when she was just three years old. So that’s a, you know, that’s a devastating record of child loss. And I think it’s part of the reason why Burr doted on his only surviving biological child, Theodosia, quite like he did. She was the apple of his eye. If you’ve ever seen Hamilton, which I haven’t - need to, Aaron Burr sings a song called “Dear Theodosia” about his love for his daughter. His love and devotion to her was above average and he made sure that she was educated as any son would have been, because he valued intelligence in women. She could speak three languages - English, Latin, and French. She studied Roman history, math which was not something women spent time learning, and philosophy. She did not study religion, however. Burr was not religious and he did not raise Theodosia to be religious either and that will matter later. Burr once wrote of his daughter quote ““I hope yet by her to convince the world what neither sex seems to believe, that women have soul!” end quote. 

 

Sadly, Theodosia, the mother, died when Theodosia the daughter was just 11 years old, likely of stomach cancer. And at that point, even though Theodosia was just 11 years old, she began taking on her mother’s role as hostess for the Burr household. She was incredibly charming, helping to host dinner parties, and entertaining her father’s prominent political guests like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. And their father daughter relationship was so unique that it sparked rumors that there was something scandalous going on between them. That it was more than just a father daughter relationship. That there was romance involved. From what I can tell, this is not true and came from a fictional novel called Burr written in 1973. And, although the author, Gore Vidal, has repeatedly maintained that he made that bit up, the rumor still stuck. So that is fiction. But they did have an unusual relationship in that they were very close. And I kind of feel like that comes from Burr just respecting women and seeing the value in them and therefore seeing the value in his own daughter. I like him for this. But, at the same time, Aaron Burr becomes a very controversial figure partly because of one of those dinner guests, Alexander Hamilton. 

 

But first, you should know that, after serving in the Revolutionary War and thoroughly ticking off George Washington, this guy, he rubbed people the wrong way I think you will come to see. Burr rubbed people the wrong way. He was opinionated and made his opinions known even when they weren’t popular. He had a very tragic early childhood. Both of his parents died when he was two. Then he and his sister went to live with their grandparents who both died of yellow fever soon after. So I feel like his fierce independence and self reliance came out of necessity of being orphaned basically twice. But it didn’t always come across as an attractive trait. Even George Washington thoroughly disliked this guy. Burr resigned from the army in 1779 because of bad health or, you know, maybe just cause he didn’t want to die. The guy was at Valley Forge, I’d be peacing out too after that. He became a lawyer in New York City. He worked his way up into politics, attorney general in 1789 and then the US senate. But to get there, to get to the Senate, he had started a smear campaign against Philip Schuyler who was father in law of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was a fellow New York lawyer and was also currently as US Secretary of the Treasury. So Burr is on Hamilton’s bad list starting then. He was not reelected to the Senate, lost to the Schuyler guy that time actually and was downgraded to state politics for a few years. But, in 1800, he was nominated as Vice President on the same ticket as Thomas Jefferson, I think because he was from New York and they needed New York’s vote to get Jefferson in office so it was all strategic not cause they particularly liked Burr or anything like that. But back then, and this is kind of crazy, back then, according to Encyclopedia Britannica quote “the electors had cast their votes for both Thomas Jefferson and Burr without indicating which should be president and which vice president. Both men had an equal number of electoral votes, and the Federalist-controlled House of Representatives had to break the tie. Burr maintained that he would not challenge Jefferson—an assertion that Jefferson did not wholly accept… Burr took office, but he was marginalized by Jefferson, who had come to believe that Burr had been engaged in secret dealings to secure the presidency for himself. That and other incidents left Burr deeply unpopular with party leaders, and his renomination as vice president seemed doubtful,” end quote. That changed, by the way with the twelfth amendment soon after, now you have to cast separate ballots for president and vice president, which duh, instead of just like “Yeah, I vote for Jefferson and Burr let them duke it out who’s going to be president and who’s going to be vice president.” That’s crazy.

 

So George Washington didn’t like him, Thomas Jefferson didn’t like him, and Alexander Hamilton absolutely hated this guy. With his reelection as vice president looking doubtful, Burr’s buddies in the New York legislature nominate him as governor of New York. But Hamilton interferes. And it’s not like he was going out for governor of New York or anything, he just didn’t want Burr to get it. It was that kind of rivalry. So he published a letter in a newspaper in which he called Burr a quote “dangerous man,” and he said some other nasty things about him at a dinner party in February of 1804 that also made the news. These guys, just the most privileged dudes making up problems. So Burr is like “what the heck? Why did you say those things about me? You need to apologize.” and Hamilton is like “nope, not gonna.” and so Burr challenges Hamilton to a duel. Which is bananas to me. Over what? Over dinner party gossip? But duels weren’t crazy back then, apparently, they were pretty common. Burr and Hamilton had both been in duels before. This was just par for the course amongst gentlemen. Hamilton’s own son had died in a duel defending his father at just 19 years old. You guys, I’m not so sure Burr is the real villain here. Hamilton had serious issues too. Dude is like a master instigator. So, anyway, let’s get into how a duel would typically go down in the early 1800s. 

 

According to a ThoughtCo article by Robert McNamara, quote “The object of a duel was not necessarily to kill or even wound one’s opponent. Duels were all about honor and demonstrating one’s bravery,” end quote. There were formal rules for dueling that had been written by a delegation over in Ireland in 1777 and these were adopted in America as well. Most duels were smoothed over by the guys apologizing before guns had to be fired. But if it did come to actually shooting at each other, Mcnamara says quote “many duelists would merely try to strike a non-fatal wound, by, for instance, shooting at their opponent's hip. Yet the flintlock pistols of the day were not terribly accurate. So any duel was bound to be fraught with danger,” end quote. And this one, the one between Burr and Hamilton, was unfortunately very fraught with danger. So, Hamilton is bad mouthing Burr at a dinner party and in the newspaper, trying to sabotage his election as governor of New York, Burr challenges him to a duel which he accepts, and they hop in boats and row over to Weehawken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan. McNamara says quote “Accounts of what happened that morning have been debated for more than 200 years. But what is clear is that both men fired their pistols, and Burr’s shot stuck Hamilton in the torso. Severely wounded, Hamilton was carried by his companions back to Manhattan, where he died the next day,” end quote. 

 

So Burr has murdered Alexander Hamilton, essentially. But don’t worry, he doesn’t get in trouble for it, not really. They issue a warrant for his arrest but then they’re like “oh it was a duel? Guys it was just a duel, that doesn’t count.” And although he did flee for a time immediately afterwards, he doesn’t get in trouble for murder. It’s all, you know, boys will be boys. Just like Andrew Jackson. Water under the bridge. So he doesn’t get in trouble for murder but he does almost get in trouble for treason, unrelated. After killing Hamilton, he contacted an old buddy of his named General James Wilkinson. Wilkinson was the governor of the northern Louisiana territory and a US army officer but he was quote “secretly in the pay of Spain” according to Encyclopedia Britannica. So kind of seems like a double agent sort of character. Anyway, Wilkinson and Burr hatch this plan to invade Mexico and establish an independent government there. They also may have had plans to get folks in the American west to join their new government in Mexico. But Wilkinson gets cold feet. I don’t know what happened, maybe Burr started getting on his nerves too, and he betrays Burr. He tells Thomas Jefferson, who is still president all about this plan and Burr is arrested for treason. But he is ultimately acquitted because, at that time, charges of treason against the US required a state of war and there was no war here, only plotting. So they let him go but his reputation is absolutely destroyed. People already didn’t like him, then he killed Hamilton, and now this. He goes to Europe. He just can’t even be in the US at this point, he’s screwed it all up so badly. 

 

He goes to Europe and he actually keeps plotting over there. Didn’t even learn his lesson. While he’s there he tries to get Napoleon to help him conquer Florida. Napoleon is like nah and that’s that. His dreams of forming his own country die there. But while all this is going on, his beloved daughter Theodosia is back in the US missing her father terribly. She had married a man named Joseph Alston who was a wealthy planter from South Carolina. And remember planter is just a really nice way of saying enslaver. So Theodosia moves with her new husband to live on his plantation, The Oaks, near Charleston, South Carolina. And she likes her husband, they have a good relationship, which is not exactly typical for this time period. They have one child together in 1802, a son named Aaron Burr Alston. But little Aaron’s birth is not easy on Theodosia and she suffers from chronic health conditions afterwards. I read prolapsed uterus which can be fixed with surgery now but maybe not back then. I can’t imagine major surgery pre-antibiotics. I also read that she potentially had some form of terminal cancer, maybe uterine cancer, because it seems her health just continued to deteriorate. Who knows. But she’s pretty miserable after the birth of her son, she suffers tremendously for years. And then her father who she is so close with commits murder and treason and exiles himself to Europe. Theodosia petitions the US government to allow her father to re-enter the country, for years she works on his behalf to get him back home, tarnishing her own reputation by doing so. He eventually returns to New York in 1812 and starts practicing law again and somewhat successfully which is insane. That people are hiring this man as a lawyer to provide legal counsel and defend them in court and whatnot after the very serious crimes he himself has committed. But, I mean, that’s a good ol’ boy for ya. 

 

So Burr is back in New York doing his thing and Theodosia hasn’t seen him for 4 years, remember she lives in South Carolina. That same year, 1812, her son who is 10 years old dies from malaria. And Theodosia is completely heartbroken over the loss of her son as any mother would be. She wrote quote “there is no more joy for me. The world is blank. I have lost my boy,” end quote. And I honestly can’t even imagine the grief. It’s unthinkable. So she’s suffering from chronic health problems and now she has lost her young son. She is in the pits of despair. She hasn’t seen her father who is like her BFF in 4 years. Now he’s back in New York and she is determined to go up there to visit him. 

 

But these were dangerous times to travel. The war of 1812 just started a few months ago between the US and Great Britain. And, to complicate matters worse, her husband, Joseph Alston is elected governor of South Carolina in December of 1812 so he can’t go with her. There’s a war going on and he’s a governor now, he has to stay in South Carolina. Burr wants his daughter to come visit him, she may be dying of this illness which is getting worse, and he wants to see her again but he worries for her safety during the voyage. It’s super dangerous, especially during a war. So he arranges for a friend of his, Dr. Timothy Greene to accompany her. Her husband, the governor, writes a letter asking the British to allow her safe passage and sends it with her in case they are stopped by the British navy. He’s hoping they’ll be civil even though they’re at war. On New Years Eve, December 31st, 1812, Theodosia and Dr. Greene board a schooner called the Patriot which departs out of Georgetown, South Carolina headed for New York and that is it. They are never seen again. 

 

The trip was only supposed to take around a week but two weeks go by and there’s no sign of the Patriot arriving in New York. Burr and Alston start to freak out. They hold out hope as long as they can but they are eventually forced to face the fact that something has happened to Theodosia. In February of 1813, Alston wrote in a letter to Burr, quote “My boy and my wife — gone both! This then is the end of all the hopes we had formed,” end quote. And they try to make sense of it, they draw their own conclusions about what must have happened. They figure there must have been a storm that sank the ship and everyone aboard must have drowned. Because there were reports of fierce storms off the coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks on January 2nd and 3rd that scattered the British Navy. This area is incredibly treacherous because of all the sifting sand and shallow shoals. It’s so treacherous, it’s been nicknamed the “graveyard of the Atlantic.” And that name is warranted. Estimates reach somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 shipwrecks off the Outer Banks which is a staggering amount. This is where the lifesaving service started which evolved into the US coast guard. Because there was such a need for rescue here. The weather is unpredictable. The wind whips up into a squall out of no where and ships are driven off course, hit a sandbar or a shoal and break apart or become stuck and battered by the wind and the waves until they ultimately sink. It is a very dangerous place to pass by in a boat, still. And so most come to believe that the Patriot was struck by one of these storms the British Navy had reported in their logs, and sank. And, as tragic as that sounds, that was the best case scenario. That was the most comforting conclusion for Burr and Alston. Because much, much worse could have happened to Theodosia. 

 

Let’s look into some of the other theories. The US was at war with Great Britain. So we have to at least consider the possibility that they were stopped by the British Navy and it did not go well, despite the letter her husband sent with her. However, something like this would have been well documented and ships logs from British vessels patrolling the area at the time do not mention an encounter with the Patriot. So, I don’t think the British were involved in the disappearance. 

 

However, the British were not the only enemies in the water. An 1820 article in the New York Advertiser reported that two men who claimed to be aboard the Patriot, Jean DeFarges and Robert Johnson were actually privateers. According to the article, these men confessed to hijacking the Patriot a few days into the voyage, trapping everyone in the ship’s hold, stealing all of their valuables, and then sinking the ship and escaping in like a lifeboat or whatever. But there are a few problems with their confession. Number one, they said the ship departed from Charleston. It didn’t. It departed from Georgetown. Number two, they said the weather had been calm for the first three days which we know isn’t true because the British naval logs are reporting storms in that area on January 2nd and 3rd. So they’re details are not lining up which casts some doubt on the whole confession. 

 

Another confession came from a guy named Benjamin F. Burdick nicknamed “Old Frank” while he lay on his deathbed. And I wish I knew more about this guy. I really couldn’t find much. But apparently he confessed to making Theodosia Burr Alston walk the plank, like in true pirate fashion. But his story doesn’t exactly line up either. Because he said that Theodosia was clutching a bible when she walked the plank. But we know that Theodosia was not religious, at all. Her father was an atheist and he did not raise her in the church. She wouldn’t have been clutching a bible. See, this is why investigators withhold certain details in murder investigations because they help rule out false confessions. 

 

Even if the ship hit a shoal and sank, there may still have been sinister interference. Because it wasn’t just storms wrecking ships along the Outer Banks. There were also people making a living out of it. Scavengers, known as “wreckers” would sometimes lure ships towards the shore using lanterns. Actually, according to legend, they would tie the lantern to a horse and have it run down the beach and the up and down motion of the light would look like another ship. So the captain, seeing the light bobbing up and down, would think he was steering towards another ship that was surely in deep, safe water. But he was actually steering towards the shore. The ship would hit a sandbar and become grounded and the wreckers would board it, steal the cargo, and possibly murder its passengers. This tying a lantern to a horse legend is one explanation for the name of the town of Nags Head (nag is a word for an old horse), though it was more likely named after a place in England called Nags Head. So who knows if they actually did that, tying a lantern to a horse. But that’s how the legend goes. So, it’s possible the ship ran aground in a storm, it’s possible it was lured into running aground by unscrupulous scavengers. 

 

The Outer Banks, even now, is super isolated. We have to drive an hour and a half, into the next state to see a decent doctor. Back then, in the 1800s, you might as well have been on another planet. You couldn’t just go to a store and buy things. You fished and you lived off the land and you scavenged. Houses were built out of parts of shipwrecks. Tables, chairs, dishes, these were hauled off of wrecks. This was the only way to get this stuff a lot of the time. And so, in 1869 when Dr. William Poole and his daughter Anna encountered a seemingly misplaced portrait of a young woman in a Nag’s Head fishing cottage, there actually was an explanation for it. Poole had traveled from Elizabeth City which is over an hour drive today with bridges and everything. Back then, I can’t even imagine. It would have involved horses, carriages, boats. It would have taken forever. He had traveled all this way to Nags Head and was seeing patient named Polly Mann. And, while there, in her house, they were drawn to a portrait Anna described as quote “of a beautiful young woman, about 25 years of age.” Dr. Poole asks Polly Mann about it like “what’s up with this painting?” and Polly tells him that her deceased husband, except I don’t know that he was her legit husband, her lover, let’s just call him that, Joseph Tillett, had found the painting inside the cabin of a shipwrecked schooner near Kitty Hawk. So Kitty Hawk and Nags Head are both Outer Banks towns about 5 miles apart. So she said he found the portrait in a shipwreck and gifted it to her. Another account said she reported he also gave her two black dresses that he found along with it. And, just to remind you, Theodosia was in mourning over the recent death of her son and it was expected at the time for people to wear black when they were in mourning. 

 

So Dr. Poole ends up taking the portrait as payment for the medical services he provided. And this really is true Outer Banks fashion, I love it. No exchange of money just, let’s just trade. So he takes the portrait. He wants the portrait because he is convinced he knows who the woman in the painting is. He thinks it’s the missing Theodosia Burr Alston. He takes the portrait to surviving members of the Burr Alston family to try to authenticate it. And, while they can’t deny the resemblance, they never can agree on whether or not it’s really her. So I have this portrait on my instagram and my website. It’s also part of the cover image for this episode. I also have several other portraits that are definitely of Theodosia on my instagram @historyfixpodcast and my website historyfixpodcast.com. Go look at them and decide if you think the Nags Head portrait is Theodosia. You guys, I think it is. She’s pretty distinct looking. She has this very prominent nose and like a high up mouth and a strong jaw, dark hair. It really does resemble the other portraits. Plus, like, I need you to understand, not just anyone could have a portrait made like this. It’s a very good portrait. There weren’t even many artists in the US at the time who could have produced a painting of this quality. It would have been incredibly expensive. This is a portrait of a wealthy, prominent woman closely resembling Theodosia Burr that supposedly washed up with a shipwreck on the Outer Banks, where her ship was passing when it disappeared. I mean come on. I really think it’s her. 

 

The portrait, which was unsigned, is now owned by the Lewis Walpole Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, which seems random but whatever. Historians have suggested that one or two artists did visit Charleston, South Carolina around the time the portrait would have been painted. Most lean towards an artist named John Vanderlyn although it’s weird that he wouldn’t have signed it. Right? I mean, I don’t know, did John Vanderlyn typically sign his paintings? Some have suggested that maybe Theodosia was taking it to New York as a gift for her father who she hadn’t seen in 4 years. Especially if she’s dying of cancer right. It kind of seemed like this was a farewell visit. Like she didn’t think she would see him again. It makes sense that she would leave him with a portrait to remember her by. And now I’m just realizing like, why didn’t Burr go to South Carolina to see her? Why make his grieving, possibly terminally ill daughter make this dangerous voyage. I don’t know. 

 

But it seems to me that the ship Theodosia was on, the Patriot met some ill fate off the coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Maybe it was a storm, maybe it was a hijacking, maybe it was pirates, maybe wreckers lured it ashore to run aground and be scavenged. The ship clearly went down one way or another. And it’s possible, I’d go as far as to say likely, that a portrait of Theodosia washed up on the beach among the wreckage and was scavenged by locals, eventually making its way to Dr. Poole who recognized the subject. That’s what happened to the ship. But what happened to Theodosia? She most likely drowned. That’s what her father and husband wanted to believe. It was January. You can’t survive in cold water like that for very long. I doubt she knew how to swim. 

 

But what if she somehow did survive? At St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia there is a grave belonging to a quote “female stranger.” According to legend, a man and a woman came into the church in 1816, so three years after the Patriot disappeared. The woman was very sick and they were seeking medical attention. But they wouldn’t answer any of the doctor’s questions about who they were. The woman died soon after and was buried in that “female stranger” grave in the church cemetery. Some have theorized that the woman, terminally ill, was Theodosia Burr Alston and the man was Dr. Timothy Greene, her father’s friend who had accompanied her on the voyage. 

 

But why go into hiding? Why not return to her husband in South Carolina? Why not continue on to her father in New York? Did Theodosia have a reason to want to escape her life? I mean kind of. She was severely depressed. She was suffering. She was grieving the loss of her son. Her father’s reputation was in shambles. Her own reputation was in shambles for sticking up for him. And if we’re going to consider the possibility that she survived and was living some secret second life then we have to consider the possibility that she never left the site of the shipwreck. It wasn’t exactly easy to get off the Outer Banks back then. You couldn’t simply walk to town, hitch a ride. You’re stranded on a barely inhabited sandbar. And so we have to at least consider the possibility that she stayed and, as my sister Hannah’s fictional short story account suggests, check the Patreon for that, settled down in a humble fishing shack, that she assumed a new identity, and lived out her life peacefully amongst the sea oats and the salt marsh away from the hustle and bustle of politics and high society. That she kept a portrait, a gift intended for her father, as a final reminder of her past life, a connection to who she once was until it was finally time to let go. 

 

Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. Also, check out Patreon for exclusive bonus content like a read aloud of Salvaged from the Storm, a fictional short story about the fate of Theodosia Burr and, if you liked this story, do please check out Outer Lore if you ever find yourself on Roanoke Island or Ocracoke. You can learn more at outerlore.com which is linked in the description.

 

Information used in this episode was sourced from Library of Congress blogs, ECU Joyner Library Special Collections, South Carolina Historical Society, allthatsinteresting.com, teachingamericanhistory.org, DigitalNC, the National Constitution Center, the Aaron Burr Association, Encyclopedia Britannica, and thoughtco. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.