Benjamin Franklin – America’s Renaissance Man

Today on Far Future Horizons in order to help commemorate the two hundred and fortieth anniversary of the founding of the United States of America we explore the life of perhaps the greatest inventive mind that ever graced America’s cultural landscape before the birth of Thomas Edison and the arrival of America’s greatest import - the creative technological genius Nikola Tesla.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His signature appears on all the documents related to the founding of our nation from the Declaration of Independence to the Treaty of Paris which formally ended the American Revolutionary War between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States of America.

Franklin was a noted polymath, a leading author and printer, a leading satirist, political theorist in colonial America, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat.

Ben Franklin Armonica

As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He formed both the first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania.

Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity; as a writer and spokesmen in London for several colonies, then as the first American ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation and embodied the frontier spirit of a young vigorous nation in the making.

So join us today on Far Future Horizons in our salute to the founding of the United States of America as we honor its greatest son and its one true Renaissance man - Benjamin Franklin.

Modern Marvels - Ben Franklin Tech
Copyright Disclaimer Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.