If you will, he was the prototype of the good American: he did his job with the tiniest of backgrounds, got rich and did a lot for the community: Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States.
When the younger Benjamin was born into a large family of candle makers in Boston in 1706, there was nothing to indicate the great career in which they would succeed. The bright boy was training to become a printer. Subsequently, printers were not only craftsmen, but also publishers and editors rolled into one. Through various positions, he began as an apprentice to his brother James and later worked in England for three years, with Franklin acquiring his own newspaper. This newspaper, now called the Pennsylvania Gazette, soon became the most popular newspaper in the colonies in North America. And Franklin used the newspaper for his purposes.
In 1747, Franklin, who now has a stake in more than 20 printing companies, was able to make his return to the day-to-day business. He now devoted his time to electrical experiments – and that’s how he invented lightning rods. He had long been involved in politics in many ways: as a member of colonial parliaments, as a colonel in the North American militia, or as the founder of the first voluntary fire brigade in Philadelphia.
But its great time was yet to come, when the gradual separation between the colonies and the homeland came to a head in 1770, which eventually ended in a war and led to the founding of the United States. In the end, Benjamin Franklin became the only person to sign all four founding documents of the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliances with France, the Peace Treaty with Great Britain, and the Constitution.
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