In his time Benjamin Franklin (1706 1790) was the most famous American in the world. Even those personally unacquainted with the man knew him as the author of" Poor Richard s Almanack," as a pioneer in the study of electricity and a major figure in the American Enlightenment, as the creator of such life-changing innovations as the lightning rod and America s first circulating library, and as a leader of the American Revolution. His friends also knew him as a brilliant conversationalist, a great wit, an intellectual filled with curiosity, and most of all a master anecdotist whose vast store...
In his time Benjamin Franklin (1706 1790) was the most famous American in the world. Even those personally unacquainted with the man knew him as th...