His first major hit was when he was a sophomore at Wesleyan University. He began to develop his first musical project, In the Heights. It was immediately successful, winning two drama desk awards before it even came to a broadway stage. After it became a broadway musical, it was nominated for a tony award the same year, and won the award for Best Musical. A few months later, In the Heights was nominated for a Pulitzer Drama Prize and a Grammy. His success didn't stop there though. While on vacation in Mexico, he decided to read Ron Chernow's biography on one of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton. An idea came to Lin. He wanted to write a musical about Alexander Hamilton. He quickly began working on what would become the musical Hamilton. He began writing and within a couple months he had a draft of one of the songs, which he presented to the former president, Barack Obama, at the white house. In 2015 it was opened as an off broadway show, a year later it was on the broadway stage. The musical was a massive hit and was