BENJAMIN FRANKLIN STORY
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 in Boston Massachusetts . His accomplishment as a scientist, publisher and statesman are particularly remarkable when considered in the context of colonial North America, which lacked the cultural and commercial institution to nourish original ideas. He dedicated himself to the improvement of every day life for the widest number of people and, in doing so, made indelible mark on the emerging nation.
Benjamin Franklin's invention include bifocal glasses and the iron furnace stove, a small contraption with a sliding door which burns wood on a grate, thus allowing people to cook food and heat their homes at the same time.
Mid-eighteenth century scientist and inventors considered electricity to be Franklin's most remarkable area of investigation and discovery. In his famous Experiment using a key and a kite during a thunderstorm, Franklin (working with his son) tested his hypothesis that lightning bolts are actually powerful electrical currents. This work led to the invention of the lightning rod which had the dramatic effect of preventing structure from igniting and burning as the result of being struck by lightning.
although Benjamin Franklin had little formal education, he was an avid reader and writer. At twelve, he was apprenticed to his brother James, a printer, who published a weekly magazine called ' The Spectator' At seventeen, Franklin moved to Philadelphia and quickly opened his own print shop and started publishing.
Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette provided information about politics to the people. Ben Franklin used political cartoons to illustrate news stories and to heighten reader appeal. May 9, 1754 issue included join, or Die, which is widely considered the first American political cartoon reflected concern about increasing French pressure along the western frontier of the colonies.
Ben Franklin also played a vital diplomatic role during the American Revolution and the early national period. In 1776, the Continental Congress sent Franklin and several others to secure a formal alliance with France, which deeply resented the loss of territory to the British during the French and the Indian War. American victory over the British in the Battle of Sarotoga convinced the French that the Americans were committed to the independence and would worthy partners in a formal alliance. During the war, France contributed an estimated twelve thousand soldiers and thirty-two thousand sailors to the American war effort.
In the last decade of his life, Benjamin Franklin served as a member of the Constitutional Convention and was elected president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery . Historians have called him the quintessential American because of his creative pragmatism , scientific innovation, and democratic spirit.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
BIOGRAPHY
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