He was born in 1767 in Braintree, Massachusetts. As a child he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill, a fight of the American Revolutionary War, from his family's farm. When his father, John Adams, traveled to Europe, John Quincy went with him as his secretary. He became good at speaking other languages. Aside from English, he was also fluent in Latin and French, and had partial knowledge of Dutch, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. 