Benjamin
(Ben)
Franklin
Born January 6, 1706
in England
[is this right?]
Son of
Josiah Franklin and
Abiah Folger
[brothers or sisters?]
Husband of
Deborah Read
(Married in
[location?] [marriage date?])
Father of
Sally Bache, William Franklin and Francis Franklin [add child]
Died April 6, 1790
in Philadelphia, PA
About Ben Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was born in England. (Is this right? Some sources have his birth in Boston, Mass., on January 17, 1706.)
He lived in Philadelphia, PA, for most of his life.
He was one of America's greatest scientific minds. He was always looking for ways to make things work better and improve the daily existence of mankind.
His idea of two different eye glass lenses in 1784, with the top half for distance seeing and the bottom half for reading, came to be called bifocals. This may have been one of his greatest ideas and still in use over 200 years later.
Other new concepts developed by Franklin include:
- A flexible urinary catheter.
- The lightening rod for buildings and ships to help prevent direct lightening strikes.
- The odometer he developed to figure distance traveled in a carriage. He used this while he was in charge of postal routes.
- A long handled pole with a grasping claw to assist him and others who had difficulty reaching items high up.
With all his creative inventions, he did not patent them, in turn not making a fortune from them.
He is buried at the Christ Church cemetery in Philadelphia.
See also: Franklin Family History.
Note that Benjamin Franklin did not have a middle name.
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