benjamin franklin

     

1777 Jean-Baptiste Greuze portrait of Franklin.

Trivia about benjamin franklin

  • In 1785 he wrote that "After fifty years' service in public affairs", he wanted to "make plenty of experiments"
  • At 81, this Pennsylvanian was the oldest delegate at the 1787 Constitutional Convention
  • At his death in 1790, he left 200-year trust funds to the cities of Boston & Philadelphia
  • In 1733 he wrote, "The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart"
  • In 1791, one year after his death, part of this American's autobiography was published in Paris as "Memoires"
  • For gossip columns, he wrote under the name Busy Body; to discuss marriage, he became Anthony Afterwit
  • In the 18th century he wrote, "I have only to move my eyes up or down... to see distinctly far or near"
  • In 1773 this ex-printer & inventor published "Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced to A Small One"
  • This author's almanacs are still popular
  • His experiments in electricity led him to invent the lightning rod
  • It was in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy that he wrote nothing is "Certain except death & taxes"
  • This colonial inventor suggested Daylight Saving Time
  • In his 1748 work "Advice to a Young Tradesman" he wrote, "Remember that time is money"
  • In 1730 he became sole owner of the Pennsylvania Gazette; he also printed it & wrote much of it himself
  • He was only 23 in 1729 when he began publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette
  • In a 1789 letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, this American said, "But in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes"
  • In 1728 this Philadelphian & partner Hugh Meredith bought a printing press
  • In 1743 he founded the American Philosophical Society
  • The 1758 preface to his “Poor Richard's Almanac” says, “He that lives upon hope will die fasting”
  • 1 man, 1 scientific mission... to tame the heavens... In 1752 he would invent the lightning rod... & electrify the world
  • The day after he landed from England in 1775, Penn.'s assembly named him to the Continental Congress
  • He also created Bridget, a wife for his Poor Richard Saunders
  • New Jersey's last royal governor was an illegitimate son of this Philadelphia printer-inventor
  • The American she called "L'Ambassadeur Electrique"
  • A Philadelphia post office museum that honors him offers his special "B. Free" cancellation
  • In a famous kite experiment, this Statesman proved that lightning is a form of electricity
  • He refused to patent or to profit from his lightning rod, a device he first described in a 1751 article
  • In 1785 Thomas Jefferson succeeded him as minister to France
  • In his will he called himself a "printer" & "late minister plenipotentiary" to the court of France
  • The Post's history goes back to The Pennsylvania Gazette founded by this man
  • Man whose earlier life is the subject here"His business ventures made him wealthy, free to pursue his experiments and inventions and to devote his life..."
  • "You may delay, but time will not", he wrote in "Poor Richard's Almanack"
  • In the late 1700s this American statesman brought the shoe-shaped slipper bathtub back from France
  • "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards", he advised in "Poor Richard's Almanack"
  • One of the first non-heads of state to appear on a stamp was this American on the U.S. 5-cent stamp in 1847
  • During a storm in the summer of 1752, he attached a key to a kite string & proved that lightning was electricity
  • He was 16 & hadn't yet moved to Philadelphia when he wrote essays called "The Dogood Papers" in 1722
  • In 1723 he became the nominal publisher of the New-England Courant, his brother James' weekly newspaper
  • In May 1732 he founded the Philadelphische Zeitung, the first foreign-language newspaper in the English colonies
  • This founding father wrote that the eagle was a coward but the turkey was respectable & a Native American
  • In 1761 this Pennsylvania statesman invented the glass harmonica
  • The oldest signer was this 81-year-old Pennsylvanian
  • He said his 1744 stove prevented one from being "scorch'd before, while he's froze behind"
  • He was never president, but he is the little green man on the front of the U.S. $100 bill
  • In 1732 this printer founded Philadelphische Zeitung, the first German-language newspaper in the English colonies
  • This colonial observed, "Fish and visitors stink after three days"
  • From 1757 to 1762 this man was ambassador extraordinaire of the American colonies to Great Britain
  • He coined the saying, Early to bed & early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy & wise"
  • Isaac Asimov's book "The Kite that Won the Revolution" told the story of this man & his kite experiments
  • In 1724, at the request of the Penn. governor, he went to London to complete his training as a printer
  • In 1783 he wrote, "There never was a good war or a bad peace"
  • In the 1720s at age 16, this statesman & inventor wrote popular articles for the New England Courant newspaper
  • In 1730 he assumed full ownership of the Pennsylvania Gazette
  • His biographer Carl Van Doren said, "After a century and a half he remains Philadelphia's 1st citizen"
  • He didn't care for the bald eagle as our national symbol, calling it "a bird of bad moral character"
  • He first went to Philadelphia in 1723 because he heard printer Andrew Bradford's best worker had died
  • Familiar with France from experimenting there, in 1779 he became our first ambassador to France
  • Asked after the Constitutional Convention "What have we got?", he replied "A republic, if you can keep it"
  • 1787:81 yrs old & penn. snds me 2 cnst cnv.im gttng 2 old fr ths...stf.lol
  • A Founding Father:"There never was a good war or a bad peace"
  • This statesman attended Masonic lodge meetings with the sculptor Houdon, who did the bust of him seen here
  • Signing the Decl. of Ind., he said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately"
  • The Pennsylvania assembly sent him to London as its agent twice: 1757-1762 & 1764-1775
  • In a 1783 letter to Josiah Quincy, he wrote "There was never a good war or a bad peace"
  • The Stamp Act was repealed soon after this founding father argued against it in Britain's Parliament
  • His stature in the early history of the United States was electrifying
  • He served jointly with William Hunter as Postmaster General of the colonies from 1753 to 1774
  • The USA's first woman newspaper editor, Ann Franklin, was this historic man's sister-in-law
  • Of people on the front of current U.S. bills, he was born the earliest
  • The mother of this founding father's illegitimate son William has never been identified
  • His funeral on April 21, 1790 drew 20,000 mourners in Philadelphia, the largest U.S. public gathering to that time
  • He served jointly with William Hunter as Postmaster General of the Colonies from 1753 to 1761
  • As a teenager, he wrote essays for a New England newspaper under the female pen name "Silence Dogood"
  • On Feb 3, 1757, when the Assembly directed this man to go to England to address colonial grievances
  • In 1777, while serving in Paris, this Pennsylvanian wrote that "our cause is the cause of all mankind"
  • Colonist seen here in an early portrait, he's wearing the emblem of a company he founded in 1736:
  • This revolutionary patriot's son William stuck with the crown as Royal Governor of New Jersey