Hamilton and surprising / lolarious actual history

[owlectomy]

I thought that this bit in "Helpless" was just a joke:

[ELIZA]
Laughin’ at my sister, cuz she wants to form a harem

[ANGELICA]
I’m just sayin’, if you really loved me, you would share him

...Until I was idly browsing Angelica Schuyler's Wikipedia page and found that she actually wrote to Eliza, "...if you were as generous as the old Romans, you would lend him to me for a little while."

So I got curious: are there bits of amazing history that you didn't know about before listening to the musical, or things you thought were jokes in the songs that actually happened?

Comments

[par_avion]

Ha, I also found that in the wiki! It's great, but I will say I didn't know that was a Roman custom.

[cahn]

I also totally love the "HA!" Eliza gives at the end of that sequence :)

An Alexander Hamilton fan I know (she was a fan of the guy from way back, years before the musical came out) was super excited about the song "Farmer, Refuted," which is the actual name of a pamphlet that Hamilton wrote and which was important in his early career and which I had never heard of before she told me this.

I also recently learned (I think this was on a history tumblr) that Burr actually wrote in a letter that he wished he had known the world was wide enough for both him and Hamilton! I totally thought that was something that had been made up for the musical.

[yatima]

Martha Washington's feral tomcat! I love Lin-Manuel breaking the fourth wall at that point just to share his joyous history-nerdery with us <3