Benjamin Franklin Biography
(Boston, 1706 - Philadelphia, 1790) Political scientist and inventor. Student electricity and what attracted your interest, inventor of the lightning rod and other useful artifacts, honest and efficient public man and leading architect of the independence of the United States, Benjamin Franklin was perhaps the most beloved of his time at home and character the only American in the British colonial era who achieved fame and notoriety in Europe.
(Boston, 1706 - Philadelphia, 1790) Political scientist and inventor. Student electricity and what attracted your interest, inventor of the lightning rod and other useful artifacts, honest and efficient public man and leading architect of the independence of the United States, Benjamin Franklin was perhaps the most beloved of his time at home and character the only American in the British colonial era who achieved fame and notoriety in Europe.
Only from admiration, you may approach your figure, and at the same time, it is hard to imagine Franklin without experiencing a feeling of warmth. His appearance was so simple, his personality was so nice and his sense of humor as spontaneously jumped to people that it was easy to love and respect. Large gray eyes and a mouth prone to smile graced the face of this paragon, he was able to excel in many fields was proposed.
"The will, talent, genius and grace gathered at her, as if nature had been shaping wasteful and happy," said one of his biographers. Apart from these gifts, Franklin always firmly believed that it was possible to change the negative aspects of character through discipline to smooth and firm again. In his youth he always carried a list of admirable qualities, which later became a small book in which each page is dedicated to a virtue. Franklin spent a week of care to each of them, reread when I had time, and started again when he reached the end.
BIOGRAPHY
Brother 15th from a total of seventeen, only Benjamin Franklin studied primary, which was at the age of ten years, vast encyclopedic erudition that exhibit at maturity was the result of an insatiable curiosity and a self-effort always collate their professional activities. At the age of twelve he began working as a printer in a company owned by John Franklin, one of his brothers.
In 1723, after a dispute with his brother, he fled to Philadelphia, where, without a penny in his pocket, he found work in a typeface. Having played for two years the same activity in England, where he had been sent to the recommendations worthless, he returned to Philadelphia and worked on his own as a typesetter and editor. In 1727 he was responsible for issuing paper currency in the British colonies in America. Later he founded the Pennsylvania Gazettenewspaper, which published between 1728 and 1748, and in 1732 began publishing Poor Richard's Almanac (1732-1757).
With the publication of the Almanac, a type of miscellaneous frequent Yearbook at the time that included Santos, horoscopes, health tips, and weather forecast, opened in his life a period of prosperity. Franklin himself serving as editor, publisher and editor, although he attributed the authorship of a fictional character who end up being famous: Richard Saunders, hence the title of Poor Richard's Almanack.
Franklin
The Richard is a provincial "Yankee" old variables humor, a rustic philosopher with the tips and edges of misogynism, who, to the despair of his wife Bridget, spent time among dusty books and astrological calculations instead of earning money support his family; He decides to edit the Almanac precisely to reconcile their interests that need.
Along with the usual sections, Franklin had the good sense to also include all sorts of maxims, proverbs, phrases and jokes, extracted from various sources; Sometimes, applying his genius and experience of human behavior, they did invent it, so successfully that ended up going to the popular heritage. After twenty-five years of uninterrupted publication, with rolls reached ten thousand copies (an impressive figure for the time), Benjamin Franklin had considerable wealth that allowed him to exit printing.
The Statesman
The era of intense political activity of Benjamin Franklin began in 1757, after so long on stage as a printer. The most important was his job as inspiring and active independence factotum. The brainchild of a few United States as one nation can be attributed, and not as a group of separate colonies, as two decades before the war of American independence designed a system of State Governments gathered under a single federal authority.
Previously, I become one of the most important public figures of Philadelphia, was elected to the Legislative Assembly; successfully concluded the treaty with the rebel Indians, which is a rational system for cleaning streets and promoted many initiatives and improvements. Active and versatile temperament boost to participate in local affairs, for example in the creation of institutions like the Philadelphia Fire Department, the Public Library and the University of Pennsylvania and the American Philosophical Society. As CEO post in Philadelphia, first importance of various public officials who play with brilliant efficiency, Franklin achieved a series of successes, dazzling in service improvement, greatly expanded the frequency of mailings and improved roads.
When in 1757 he was sent to London to defend the interests of the American colonies to the metropolis, Benjamin Franklin began an intense political work that would bring the desired fruit. On one famous occasion was all day in the House of Commons, with great ability to answer questions that members of the institution honorably about the strength of the colonies led to the English tax law, which was detrimental to the interests of the very hated the American colonists. The result was that Parliament repealed the Law (1766) and the war took ten years, giving separatists enough time to prepare.
Franklin
Before the new fiscal and political pressures exerted by the metropolis, Benjamin Franklin left London; He returned to Philadelphia in 1775 and resolutely joined the independence movement. That same year he was appointed deputy for Pennsylvania in the Second Continental Congress, where representatives of the thirteen American colonies, decided to form an army to fight against England. The following year he wrote, along with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the historic Declaration of Independence (1776).
Because of his reputation, he was elected in December of that year for a tour of Europe (1776-1785), seeking support for the cause of independence. It was essential to get the help of France, without which the conflict could be extended indefinitely and even lost. George Washington had given to an organization of the US Army, but the mother had all the power, weapons and important allies. It was necessary to counter that power by getting the help of France. Franklin not only convinced the reluctant French king, Louis XVI, who secretly sent supplies to General Washington, but a year later (1778) managed to openly enter the war as an ally after signing a treaty of friendship.
After the war, and achieved effective independence, Benjamin Franklin was participating in negotiations to conclude a peace treaty to end the conflict (1783). After returning to Philadelphia, he became a member of the Convention responsible for drafting the US Constitution (1787). Franklin got, in addition to solving a problem that threatened to seriously impede the formation of the new country, small states wanted equal representation in Congress that the greatest and at the same time, claimed that the number of elected delegates according to each the state's population.
Franklin found it difficult to accept the first proposal as the basis for the Senate and the second for the House of Representatives; then, when the Constitution was ready, personally treaty was ratified by the states, a task that had to put all his skills of persuasion skills of teachers and reasoning: none of its members resisted his arguments. Back in Philadelphia, he was old and tired, and hopefully a short break, I was immediately overwhelmed by the new public responsibilities, which takes place once again with his perfect and admirable style assigned missions.
THE SCIENTIST
Benjamin Franklin's interest for scientific topics began in mid-century and coincided roughly with that period of intense political activity. During a stay in France, in 1752, he conducted the famous kite experiment, which allowed him to show that the clouds become electrically charged and, therefore, the rays are essentially electric shock.
For the experiment, not without risk, he used a kite which is equipped with a metal wire attached to a silk thread that, in his fantasy, was charged with the power absorbed by the wire. During the storm he approached the turnkey hanging silk thread, noting that, in experiments with Leyden jars had done before, sparks, which showed the presence of electricity.
This discovery allowed him to invent the lightning rod, whose effectiveness resulted in 1782 in the city of Philadelphia, 400 of these mills were installed. His work on electricity led him to formulate concepts such as negative and positive electricity (observing the behavior of amber rods) or electrical conductor, among others. It has also exposed a theory of electricity he was considered that this was a subtle fluid that might present an excess or defect, discovered the power of metal probes to observe a body with electric charge is discharged much faster if it ends in a point and he enunciated the principle of conservation of electric charge.
Benjamin Franklin also invented called Franklin stove (1742), a series of iron greater efficiency and lower consumption, and bifocals. The great curiosity about natural phenomena led him to study, among others, during the storms that form in the Americas, and was the first to analyze the warm current flowing through the North Atlantic and is known today with the name of the Gulf Stream.
Instrumentalist musician and expert, also wrote about the problems of musical composition, in particular those concerning the adaptation of the music on demand so that the latter could be intelligible. A detailed report of their findings is endless and exhausting, as their creative ability and sense of anticipation were absolutely extraordinary.
Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia at age 84. He had remained active most of his life; only two years before had decided to withdraw from public life and complete his autobiography (begun in 1771), that would come posthumously. One of the reasons that led him to longevity was her deep knowledge of the health problems. It was long walks he had time, he was an example of moderation on the table and against many prejudices accepted by his contemporaries, had habits that were unusual for the average American, as usual, considered extravagant and pernicious, sleep with the windows open.
Extracted from site: BiografĂas y Vidas
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