The Lewis and Clark expedition happened because of Thomas Jefferson

One of the most interesting facts about Lewis and Clark expedition is their expedition happened because of Thomas Jefferson. Lewis resigned from the army in 1801, they agreed to work as Thomas Jefferson's presidential secretary. Lewis and Jefferson had a mentor-protégé relationship while working together at the White House since Lewis had known Jefferson since he was a young kid and had grown up on a Virginia plantation not far from Monticello. Lewis was chosen by Jefferson as the expedition's leader as soon as he had the idea for his massive mission to the West in 1802. Jefferson dispatched the young secretary to Philadelphia to study medicine, botany, and celestial navigation after giving him a crash course in the natural sciences to help him be ready.

President Thomas Jefferson acquired a sizable chunk of American land from France in 1803. The Louisiana Purchase is the name given to this transaction. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were given the task of leading an expedition to learn what they could about the region because Jefferson had no idea what the area held.

Europeans have been looking for a shortcut that would make it simple to carry people and goods from the east to the west since the middle ages. However, there was no such route before the Panama Canal's construction in 1914. The land route through Europe and Asia was even riskier and slower than sailing around Africa. Nothing had changed by the 19th century, and Thomas Jefferson continued to hold out hope that such a tunnel may be discovered on the western side of America.