60 Minutes - Sunday, June 12, 2016

Episode Date: June 13, 2016

Scott Pelley reports on El Faro. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at visa.ca slash fintech. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. This is the end of the show. and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. The El Faro is the worst maritime disaster for the United States in 35 years. These are the first pictures that the public has seen of the ship deeper than the Titanic in the Bermuda Triangle.

Why was a ship 40 years old, why was it still being put in service? The families of 33 men and women lost at sea want answers. We went with the team that found the ship and saw their startling discovery. I'm past patiently waiting, I'm passionately smashing. Every expectation, every action's an act of creation. The show has reached the loftiest heights. And later tonight, Hamilton is expected to make history at the Tony Awards. So what did I miss? It has become almost impossible to land a ticket.

I will kill your friends and family. It has become almost impossible to land a ticket. Those lucky enough to get in never know who might be sitting next to them. The president of the United States. At our sixth preview. It's put my dreams to shame. I'm Steve Kroft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker.

I'm Charlie Rose. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. to be busy, too busy, too busy worrying about your budget, too busy scheduling appointments, too busy to build a website for your business. And because you're too busy, it has to be easy. And that's where Wix.com comes in. With Wix.com, it's easy for you to create your stunning website. Go to Wix.com and create your website today. It's easy and free. That's WIX.com. Last October, Hurricane Joaquin became the deadliest Atlantic storm since Sandy. But Joaquin didn't even brush the U.S. coast. The most powerful Atlantic cyclone in five years found its victims at sea.

33 men and women on board an American ship called El Faro. She was lost in the Bermuda Triangle, carrying a mystery to a grave deeper than Titanic's, the greatest loss of a U.S. ship in 35 years. The National Transportation Safety Board allowed us inside its investigation to show the enormous challenges. As we first reported in January, the NTSB intends to shine a light on what went wrong for the families and for the future. True to El Faro. She carried sophisticated diving technology under the command of Captain Greg Bauman, the Navy's supervisor of salvage and diving.

Unfortunately, in a lot of the things that we do, it does involve a tragedy like this, and it's just absolutely gut-wrenching. But at the end of the day, what it is that you really want to do is bring answers back, help bring closure to the families. But answers were obscured by extreme depth and only a rough idea of where to look. This is the most difficult and complex investigation I've ever worked on in my 17 years with the National Transportation Safety Board. And this is called the machinery space.

Tom Rothroffee is the lead investigator. All he had was the ship's last position, an oil slick, and a little debris at the surface. What's your level of confidence that at the end of all of this you're going to know exactly why this ship sank? We've experienced this sort of challenges before on other investigations and we're hopeful that we'll be able to determine the cause of the sinking. This is El Faro, a typical medium-sized cargo ship nearly 800 feet long. She was distinctive in a few ways. She served the U.S. military in the Iraq War. She was cut in half two decades ago and lengthened 90 feet. And she was 40 years old, an age when container ships are commonly sold for scrap. Why was a ship 40 years old,

why was it still being put in service? The families of the crew have many questions. Glenn Jackson lost his brother Jack. Why was a ship that had been grandfathered in to not have the enclosed lifeboats being allowed to sail with just the open hull, like whaling lifeboats, and expecting people to survive in that. Tanisha Thomas lost her husband, Sean. I asked the company a question. Why did they allow the ship to continue to go into the storm? They didn't have to go into the hurricane.

They did not have to go into the hurricane. September 29th, El Faro left Jacksonville, Florida for Puerto Rico. Captain Michael Davidson, who had a long career, intended to steer 65 miles south of the storm's predicted path. Even in a hurricane, the ship could likely survive by using its turbine engine to keep the bow pointed directly into the waves, a ship's most survivable angle. But in 18 hours, Joaquin spun into a Category 3 and slid southwest toward El Faro. At 7 a.m. October 1st, Davidson made an emergency call to the ship's owner, Tote Maritime. What do we know from the captain's last report? We know that he had lost propulsion, that the engineers were unable to restart the main engine.

We know that the vessel was listing about 15 degrees and that one of the hatches had popped or had come open. He was taking on water? Correct. If the ship lost power, as the captain reported, you would expect her to turn sideways to the waves, and that is her most vulnerable position. That's correct. The ship was approximately here, miles from the eye of the storm.

The forecast predicted gusts of 150 miles an hour and seas of 30 feet. Three weeks later, Apache arrived in a search area of 198 square miles. Chief sonar operator Charles Kapika towed a side-scan sonar for five days when he spotted something you don't see in nature, a right angle. There's very bright angles, straight with the shadow. At this point, I'm calling over saying, I think there's something coming up you want to see. As the sonar scan slowly unfurled, the sound waves reflected the shape of a ship about 800 feet long. So at that point, we talked to the NTSB and said, we believe we have found it. But before we gave full confirmation, we then put our curve in the water and then did a survey of the hull with moving and still photography.

The cable-controlled underwater recovery vehicle can reach 20,000 feet. And these are the cameras? Correct. So here's a pan and tilt camera. You've got some lights right here. There is zero light at 15,000 feet. Correct. Total, utter darkness. So any light you have, you have to bring with you. Absolutely.

Apache dropped curve 15,500 feet, nearly three miles. In the abyss, the temperature is about 33 degrees. The pressure, more than three tons per square inch. Flurries of tiny marine life drift by, but fish are rare in the impenetrable darkness. This is where El Faro came to rest, upright, hull largely intact, her name mangled on the stern. Her depth markings reported that this, the bow, had sunk 15 feet into the mud. Her autopsy revealed a body that had been savagely beaten. Steel crushed. Equipment collapsed. There was no sign of the 33 crew members. Equipment and cargo litter the seabed. That's a microwave oven.

And on the right, that's a printer. Here is the top of a car with a sunroof, part of the cargo. What do we see there? That is a liquid storage container. And you can see that it's kind of compressed, kind of imploded by the pressure of the sea. Of its 400 cargo containers, only two remain on deck. And toward the stern, in the structure called the house where the crew lived and worked, Curve discovered the most chilling evidence of the power of an unforgiving sea.

Now, at the top of that white line there is the most surprising part of our video survey is there's nothing above there. What should be there? There should be two decks above that, the lower navigation bridge deck and the bridge deck. The two top decks had sheared off, including the bridge where Captain Davidson would have been fighting the storm. They were nowhere near the ship. Also missing, the voyage data recorder, like a so-called black box on an airplane. It had been bolted to the top of the bridge and was the one piece Tom Rothroff wanted most. Because it would have told us what the crew was experiencing at the time, in the minutes before the vessel sank, what they observed, you know, the extent of the flooding, how they were responding,

and essentially the events leading up to the actual catastrophe. You know, I'm curious, when you first saw the video of the ship, what did you think? We were looking, of course, for the bridge and the voyage data recorder. And we got up to that level and to see just openness was extremely moving

and difficult to... It was a very big surprise to us to see that. Moving in what way? Just to see the violence of the sea and the winds that would have had to occur to cause that kind of... To cause that kind of an event. Because certainly there would have been people on the bridge when that happened. Yes, quite certainly. And the shock and surprise to them as waves and whatnot, and they're just washed into the ocean. When you found out the news, how did you

tell your son and daughter? How do you say anything to your kids? Jeremy Rehm left behind two children, 13 and 21, and his wife, Tina. And that was hard because I guess I was in denial. I finally had to tell my kids that it wasn't looking good for daddy's ship. And that was, that was terrible. It's like my chest collapsed, and we couldn't breathe. It was very... Deb Roberts lost her son, Michael Holland. Deb, do you have an opinion on where responsibility lies in this? I'm not a professional. I'm not an engineer. I'm a business manager. I think it was a series of unfortunate events. And without any other information, I truly blame it on Hurricane

Joaquin. Glenn, in your estimation, where does the responsibility for this lie? Squarely on Tote Maritime. And you've got to understand, commercial shipping, they've got to keep that ship moving to make money. And that's the whole horror of this tragedy, is that 33 people died so that frozen chickens could be delivered on time in Puerto Rico. That's it. The safety board told us that Tote Maritime, the owner,

is cooperating fully. Tote declined to talk with us, other than to say it created a fund for the families and that El Faro was regularly maintained. The ship had passed two inspections in the months before the accident. A week after we left, Apache located those two bridge decks about half a mile from the ship. The windows were blown out. The voyage data recorder was not there. But based on the captain's last message, investigator Tom Rothraffi has a lead on the loss of propulsion. I believe we have an understanding that it was actually the main turbine, the steam turbine, that was lost.

One theory is, in violent seas, the propeller might have been thrust out of the water, causing it to spin too fast and shut down the turbine. The captain sailed into this hurricane. We know that much, but what we don't know is why. So we're looking at the oversight, the direction, the advice provided by the operating company, Tote, to see what information was available to him. Certainly also we're looking at the weather forecast, the accuracy and the timeliness of the information when he made his decision to sail where he did. To your knowledge, was he receiving orders from the company to press on?

No. From what we've identified so far and the information that we've reviewed, there has been no direct guidance by the company to sail on the route he chose. The chairman of the NTSB, Christopher Hart, says it will take at least a year to answer the remaining questions. Do you have confidence that you're going to learn the probable cause of this accident? I'm sure that it will be difficult given the situation, 15,000 feet of water, no voice data recorder yet. We may still find it, but given that, we have a history of finding out

what happened, even in the most difficult circumstances, and I'm comfortable to say that we will be able to do that again. The families believe some of the crew are entombed in the ship, where they would have been struggling to get the turbine running. Richard Puzzateri, the chief engineer, was most likely leading that fight. Frank Puzzoteri is his father. You believe that your son was in the engine room? Oh, most definitely. And until someone could prove me wrong, which would be the black box or any other thing,

or Richard walking through that door, is that when a ship listed and then capsized, I guarantee you they were injured, they were knocked out, and that was over, and they were all together. And that's how I want to believe it, and until you can prove me wrong, Scott, or anyone else, that's where it's going to happen, and that's my report to the National Transportation Safety Board.

In April, the NTSB did locate El Faro's voyage data recorder, about a quarter of a mile away from the main wreck. Next month, the NTSB and the Navy will embark on another mission to retrieve it. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. Later tonight on CBS, the Tony Awards will honor the best theatrical performances of 2015. And one show towers above the competition, Hamilton. The hip-hop musical about America's founding fathers is nominated for a record 16 Tonys and has become a cultural phenomenon. Hamilton is the creation of 36-year-old Lin-Manuel Miranda,

who wrote the music, lyrics, and plays the title character. We originally broadcast this story last fall. Tonight, we've expanded it to include more of the cast, the remarkable performances, and more of the story of Alexander Hamilton himself, one of the most audacious and brilliant figures in American history. The thing about Hamilton is he spoke in paragraphs. And so the opening sentence of our show is this crazy run-on sentence. How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence. Impoverished and squalor, comma, grow up to be a hero and a scholar.

That's the question we're going to answer for the next two hours and 45 minutes. I'm past patiently waiting, I'm passionately smashing. Every expectation, every action's an act of creation. In Hamilton, the answers come fast. This time I'm thinking past tomorrow. And I am not going out of shot. In Hamilton, the answers come fast. My Shot is the show's anthem as Hamilton arrived in New York City during the American Revolution and seized his opportunity. Take a shot, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, best cup that I ever wrote. That's how seriously I was taking it. Hamilton demands lots from you. Yes. I mean, he's calling on your best. He's calling on my best because he's the smartest guy in the room. So I have to write from the perspective of the smartest guy in the room when the other people in the room are Jefferson and Washington and very smart guys.

Sir, entrust me with the command. Hamilton was front and center at nearly every major event in early American history. Man, the man is nonstop. He never became president, but had a bigger impact than many who did. Let me tell you what I wish I'd known. His mentor was George Washington, played by Chris Jackson, who plucked Hamilton out of the ranks and relied on him for 20 years. So what did I miss? What did I miss? Rapper Daveed Diggs plays Thomas Jefferson. He is Hamilton's primary political opponent. I've been in Paris meeting lots of different ladies. I guess I basically missed the late 80s. The show reflects Miranda's broad musical taste, but hip-hop and rap define it.

Your music is hip-hop. Your music is rap. Yes, and I also believe that that form is uniquely suited to tell Hamilton's story. Because it has more words per measure than any other musical genre. It has rhythm and it has density. And if Hamilton had anything in his writings, it was this density. I'm a girl in a world in which my only job is to marry rich.

My father has no son, so I'm the one who has to social guy for one. So I'm the oldest and the wittiest and the gossip in New York City is insidious. Miranda wrote this for Hamilton's sister-in-law, Angelica Schuyler, played by Renee Elise Goldberry. In Hamilton, women get equal time. The idea to cast black and Latino actors to play the founders was deliberate. Miranda wanted to connect America then with America now. Never back down, never back down. Never back down, never back down. Hamilton blossomed during an extended run at New York's Public Theater and was greeted with fireworks over the Hudson when it opened on Broadway. I come up here in the opening number.

The show has already reached the loftiest heights. In ten months at the Richard Rogers Theatre, Hamilton has established itself as Broadway's impossible ticket, fetching more than $1,000 a seat from ticket brokers. And those lucky enough to get a seat never know who might be next to them. The President of the United States. At our sixth preview.

The Vice President of the United States. Yes. It's put my dreams to shame. Exactly. It's super, super humbling. And when you list those bold-faced names that have come to see the show, I see those as an opportunity to see the show with fresh eyes while I'm doing it. When Dick Cheney is sitting in the audience, I think, what is he thinking when he hears the lyric,

history has its eyes on you? You know, when the president is here, what is he thinking as he sees George Washington say, I have to step down so the country can move on? Hamilton was a complicated figure, war hero, famous philanderer, political thinker, mud-slinging politician, and the nation's first treasury secretary. He creates the first fiscal system, first monetary system, first customs service, first central bank, on and on and on. Ron Chernow wrote the biography that inspired the musical and is the show's historical advisor.

Here's the story of a penniless, orphaned immigrant kid who comes out of nowhere and sets the world on fire. And his achievements were absolutely monumental. You say he came out of nowhere. Where is nowhere? He was born on the island of Nevis. He spent his adolescence on St. Croix. His father abandoned the family when Alexander was 11. His mother died when he was 13.

When he came to North America, he didn't know a soul. This is Inwood. This is where I grew up. We're still playing dominoes on the streets. It is a story Miranda could relate to. His father graduated college at 18 in Puerto Rico and moved to Manhattan. Luis Miranda became a prominent political consultant. His wife, Luz, a psychologist. Luz and I, we have always known that this kid was destined for greatness.

He's looking down. My only concern was always, is this greatness going to come with money so that he could survive forever? When did you see the musical talent, always? From the time he was tiny. He loved to sing. He was always creating, and he loved words and songs.

At five, Miranda tested into Hunter College Elementary, a school for highly gifted children, where he told us sometimes he felt like he did not belong. You know, I went to a school where everyone was smarter than me. I'm not blowing smoke. I was surrounded by genius, genius kids. What's interesting about growing up in a culture like that is you go, all right, I got to figure out what my thing is because I'm not smarter than these kids. I'm not funnier than half of them. So I better figure out

what it is I want to do and work really hard at that. And because intellectually I'm treading water to be here. So why do you think I'm sitting here talking to you and not sitting here talking to one of your classmates? Because I picked a lane and I started running ahead of everybody else. That's the honest answer. I was like, all right, this. This was theater. He was in practically every school play. This is upstairs. This is really where we grew up. The family didn't have a lot of money to see Broadway shows, but they did collect cast albums, and Miranda consumed them. Camelot, follow me. The lusty month of May.

Lusty month of May. All of the wordplay. If you may take me to the fair. You'll thrash and bash him, I'll smash and mash him. You'll, you know, he will be trouble. He will be rubble. If ever I would leave you. If ever, yeah. It would not be in springtime, knowing how in spring I'm bewitched by you, sir. How can you have so many songs in your head? Because I had a lot of time on my hands. So many songs in your head. Yeah, well, these were... Do you have room for anything else in your head? I mean, I don't know my Social Security number.

He graduated from Wesleyan University in 2002 with a degree in theater arts. That's where he began working on a show about his old neighborhood. Lottery ticket just a part of the routine. Everybody's got a job. Everybody's got a dream. It turned into Miranda's first Broadway show. In the Heights won the 2008 Tony for Best Musical. Two months later, he picked up Ron Chernow's book during a vacation.

This is what I knew from high school. I knew Hamilton died in a duel with the vice president. I knew he was on the $10 bill. But really, I just was browsing the biography section. It could have been Truman. And as you read it, what happened? I was thunderstruck. I got to the part where, you know, a hurricane destroys St. Croix, where Hamilton is living. And he writes a poem about the carnage. And this poem gets him off the island. You saw a rap artist in him. Yes. I drew a direct line between

Hamilton's writing his way out of his circumstances and the rappers I'd grown up adoring. It's Biggie and Jay-Z writing about growing up in the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn. It's Eminem writing about growing up white in Detroit. It's writing about that struggle and paradoxically, your writing being so good, it gets you out. I'm thrilled the White House called me. Nine months after reading the book, he was invited to the White House to perform a song from In the Heights. He decided to take a risk.

I'm actually working on a hip-hop album. It's a concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. You laugh, but it's true. So when you did it, and you look at the video now. I see a terrified young Puerto Rican man. Do you? Terrified because there's the leader of the free world,

newly elected leader of the free world, his entire family. There's Biden. The $10 founding father without a father. But as he began the story, the room was mesmerized. Moved in with a cousin. The cousin committed suicide. But as he began the story, the things he can't afford. That video is a microcosm of my entire Hamilton experience. I say hip hop, Alexander Hamilton, and everyone laughs. And then by the end, they're not laughing because they're in it, because they've been sucked into the story, just like I got sucked into the story.

When we finally drive the British away, Lafayette is there waiting in Chesapeake. Miranda's gift is bringing that story to today's audiences, reminding them whom to thank for building this nation. I do say no sweats, we're finally on the field, we've had quite a run. Immigrants, we get the job done. There's a lot of ways in, right? If you're scared of hip-hop

or you thought hip-hop was not music for you, we're going to give you King George who sings a British Invasion-style song from the 60s. That's a showstopper, too. It's a showstopper, and it's a breath. You say The price of my love's not a price that you're willing to pay.

The British king, played here by Jonathan Groff, scoffs at the colonists and European immigrants trying to go it alone. You'll be back, soon you'll see. You remember you belong to me. You'll be back, time will tell. You'll remember that I served you well. Oceans rise, empires fall. We have seen each other through its hole.

What's interesting about that role, and I didn't even really anticipate it when I was writing it, the king becomes the audience's surrogate. As they watch this country being formed in front of their eyes, and the king goes, wait, you're really going to keep changing leaders? Wait, what are you going to do now that the war is over? Oh, you're going to come back. Oh, you'll be back.

He speaks to the country as if it was a girlfriend he didn't treat well. Because when Bush comes to shout, I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love. Da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I think the secret sauce of this show is that I can't believe this story is true. It's such an improbable and amazing story, and I learned about it while I was writing it. And I think that enthusiasm is baked into the recipe. Some of the other cast members and the story of the duel that ended Hamilton's life when we come back. Welcome to Play It, a new podcast network

featuring radio and TV personalities talking business, sports, tech, entertainment, and more. Play it at play.it. Ten months ago, the Broadway musical Hamilton struck like a cultural earthquake, shaking up the worlds of theater, music, and American history. It even seems to have altered our money when the Treasury Department scrapped plans

to remove Alexander Hamilton's face from the $10 bill. Tonight, it is up for a record-breaking 16 Tony Awards. The man responsible for all this is Len Manuel Miranda, who plans to move on and leave the show this summer. He took stories from dusty history books and conjured up living, breathing human beings. I think we take great pains to knock all these guys off their pedestals. Yeah, you do.

This is Washington impatient and yelling, are these the men with which I am to defend America? Which he did as he was fleeing New York. That's a quote. This is Jefferson and Hamilton squabbling. These guys didn't get tablets and stone from on a mountaintop. They compromised. They made mistakes.

Their fights led to precedence. And I think it's an important reminder that they were as human as us. The issue on the table. The tenor of their politics will sound familiar too. Hamilton's debate with Jefferson over how to pay off the Revolutionary War debt was so intense, Miranda stages it as a rap battle. Are you ready for a cabinet meeting, huh? With Washington as referee. In Virginia, we plant seeds in the ground. We create. You just want to move our

money around. This financial plan is an outrageous demand, and it's too many damn pages for any man to understand. Stand with me in the land of the free. Pray to God we never see Hamilton's candidacy. Look, when Britain taxed our tea, we got frisky. Imagine what gonna happen when you try to tax our whiskey.

Thank you, Secretary Jefferson. Thomas, that was a real nice declaration. Welcome to the present. We're running a real nation. Would you like to join us or stay mellow? Doing whatever the hell it is you do in Monticello? A civics lesson from a slaver. Hey, neighbor, your debts are paid because you don't pay for labor.

We plant seeds in the South. We create and keep ranting. We know who's really doing the planting. Hamilton's combative nature made him monumental enemies, including Presidents Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, all downplayed Hamilton's achievements and diminished his legacy. The only one to fare worse in the eyes of history was Hamilton's killer, Vice President Aaron Burr. Miranda gives him a starring role. Burr becomes your narrator.

Yes. Because you need what? Well, when I need balance, Hamilton would be happy to narrate his own story. In paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs. And also, Burr is the mirror image of Hamilton. He's also orphaned at a young age. Speeds through college.

Speeds through Princeton in two years. Starts at 13, age 13. Just as smart as Hamilton? Just as smart as Hamilton? Just as smart as Hamilton. But every time Hamilton says go, Burr says stop. He's just cautious. Hamilton doesn't hesitate. Burr is played by Leslie Odom Jr. Takes and he takes and he takes and he keeps winning anyway. Changes the game, plays and he raises the stakes.

And if there's a reason he seems to thrive and so few survive, then God damn it, I'm willing to wait for it. I'm willing to wait for it. Miranda explores the rivalry between Burr and Hamilton, from friends to competitors to political rivals. In one song, they finally become enemies. I want to be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens.

Room Where It Happens was the toughest jigsaw puzzle I've ever done. A puzzle explaining how Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison made a backroom deal to move the U.S. Capitol from New York City to Washington, D.C. in 1790. In the musical, this becomes the final straw for the man left out. I'm both trying to explain this very complicated compromise. The art of the compromise Hold your nose and close your eyes I'm both trying to explain this very complicated compromise that happened behind closed doors,

and what makes it exciting in the context of our story is we're telling it from the perspective of the one guy who wasn't there, Aaron Burr. He says, these guys just traded away the capital of our country in exchange for an unprecedented financial plan. And it all happened over a dinner that none of us were at. None of us had any say in the decision. The room where it happens. The room where it happens. I've got to go. I've got to be. I've got to be.

I've got to be. I'm going to have you. Home! Click boom! For years, the story of Burr and Hamilton was hidden away in places like this, the New York Historical Society Library. It holds many of their original writings. This is where historian Ron Chernow researched the biography that inspired Miranda. Lin-Manuel Miranda, I think, was smart enough to know that the best

way to dramatize the story was to stick as close to the facts as possible. You want violence? There's violence in the story. You want sex? There's sex in the story. You want power? There's power in the story. You want power in the story. This has all of the ingredients. Including the story of Hamilton's political downfall. It began with a year-long affair with a young woman named Mariah Reynolds, and it turned into the nation's first bona fide sex scandal. I think that what makes the whole story so bizarre and unbelievable is that Hamilton ended up paying

blackmail money to Mr. Reynolds. And this at a time when Hamilton was not just the Treasury Secretary, but he was effectively like the Prime Minister of Washington's government. So he was the most powerful man in the government. When he was exposed, Hamilton did something no one expected. He confessed everything. He wrote a 95-page pamphlet when even his closest friends thought that a delicately worded paragraph or two would have done the trick. I apologize, I made a mistake. And that would have done it.

Alexander Hamilton had a torrent affair, and he wrote it down right there. In the show, Miranda uses Hamilton's own words from what became known as the Reynolds Pamphlet. I had frequent meetings with her, most of them in my own house. His own house. His own house. Damn. The scandal was one big reason there was never a President Hamilton. I ain't never gonna be president now.

Let's go be president now. I ain't never gonna be president now. Let's go be president now. One last thing to worry about. He's made these dead white guys make sense to a bunch of, you know, black and brown people. He's made them make sense in the context of our time with our music. We spoke last fall with some of Miranda's most important collaborators, cast members Leslie Odom Jr., Renee Elise Goldsberry, Daveed Diggs, Philippa Sue,

and Chris Jackson. What is it that connects? What are you hearing? What is it that's resonating in these audiences? There's so many different things happening in this story that it's almost impossible to peg. I think it's just the music or it's just the movement or it's the lights or it's the stage. It could be any number of those things or all of those things. These are good female roles too, aren't they? Yes, they are.

One of the things that's exciting to me about playing Angelica Schuyler and feeling so powerful and knowing that in the time that we live in with Hillary running for president, we get to show who the founding mothers are and what they did. And they were not just sowing flags.

They were actually the muse, like Angelica Schuyler was to Thomas Jefferson and to Hamilton. My character is one of the only characters that doesn't rap at all. And I don't think that's an accident because I feel like Eliza is about time. I have more time to express a very simple piece of information as opposed to the rap. David, you said it gives you something you didn't have before, ownership of your own history. Yeah, I mean, this is the only time I've ever felt particularly American is in the last, like, eight months that I've been working on this. Hamilton has come back to life at a time when politics and immigration

are the hottest topics in America. But it is Miranda's writing that has made it a juggernaut. When you write, I've been told you write, and if it's sad, tears come to your eyes. You're in the moment to express yourself. Yeah, I think of acting and writing as pretty much the same thing. It's all about getting inside the skin of your characters

and seeing where they are and knowing how they've grown up you have to know all this like in your bones what they've come up against who they are and then you just start talking as them and you write until the rust comes out of the faucet and it's clear water and you write down the clear water because the clear water is the perfection at the end of that well it's the stuff that feels true. The bullet hit him actually on the right side. Most people already know how the story of Alexander Hamilton ends. He died in 1804 in a duel with Aaron Burr in Weehawken, New Jersey. By then, Burr was a lame dog vice president. Hamilton, just shy of his 50th birthday, was practicing law. How could that happen? Dueling revolved around honor.

You were protecting your honor. But here are two men. They're not ordinary politicians. They have a lot to lose. Here were two politicians with their careers in decline who thought that they would establish their courage and manhood on the dueling ground. Burr was feeling very, very frustrated.

It seemed like at every turn, Alexander Hamilton was there, you know, blocking his path. He writes in a letter before the duel, he said, there was no way this could have been avoided. We've been circling each other for a while. It was always going to come to this. This was going to happen. This was going to happen. They're fundamentally different men and they run in concentric circles until they meet. And everything around them is moving. Miranda and director Tommy Kail staged the intensifying rivalry between the two men. Oh, yeah. It's pretty cool, right? It's really cool. The turntable was essential. It allows the propulsion of the show to continue, to continue this insistence of movement that Hamilton had in his life. I imagine death so much it

feels more like a memory. Many historians including Chernow believe Hamilton deliberately fired into the air throwing away his shot. It is a fatal miscalculation. Here's the thing about Hamilton. I think Hamilton was ready to die from the time he was 14 years old. I think what he has is what I have, which is that thing of tomorrow's not promised. I've got to get as much done as I can. It's not only good acting. It is not only good music.

People are saying it's transformative. It certainly changes my life. But I think it's because when great people cross our path, and I'm talking about Hamilton here, it forces us to reckon with what we're doing with our lives. You know? At my age, Hamilton is Treasury Secretary and creating our financial system from scratch. And building a country. Yeah.

I wrote two plays. The making of the Hamilton Cast Album. Go to 60minutesovertime.com Sponsored by Prevnar 13.