Benjamin Franklin dies at age 84, April 17, 1790
Benjamin Franklin, a statesman and scientist, died on this day in 1790 in Philadelphia. He was 84 years old, having lived well beyond the average life expectancy for Americans at the time. His funeral was the largest Philadelphia had ever seen.
In 1775, as the Revolution approached, Franklin was a delegate in the Continental Congress. In 1776, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence and in July signed the document. (Franklin’s illegitimate son, William, whom Franklin and his wife had raised, had at the same time emerged as a leader of the pro-British Loyalists.)
In the revolutionary year of 1776, the Continental Congress sent Franklin to France as a diplomat. He was warmly embraced by the Parisian nobility for his unaffected manner. In 1778, he succeeded in securing two treaties that gave the embattled Americans significant military and economic aid.
In 1781, with French military help, the British faced the loss of their American colonies. Along with John Jay and John Adams, Franklin negotiated the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain, which was signed in 1783, ending the hostilities between the mother country and the newly independent nation across the Atlantic.
In 1785, Franklin returned to the United States. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and helped ensure the new Constitution’s ratification.
Born in Boston in 1706, Franklin became at 12 years old an apprentice to his half-brother James, a printer and publisher. He learned the printing trade and, in 1723, went to Philadelphia to work after a dispute with his brother. After a sojourn in London, he started a printing and publishing press with a friend in 1728. From 1732 to 1757, he wrote and published Poor Richard’s Almanack, a popular periodical in which Franklin coined such proverbs as “God helps those who help themselves” and “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
As his own wealth and prestige grew, Franklin took on greater civic responsibilities in Philadelphia. He helped establish the city’s first circulating library, police force, volunteer fire company, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania.
His interest in science and technology led to the invention of the Franklin stove, which is still made today as well as bifocal eyeglasses. In 1748, he turned his printing business over to his partner so he would have more time for his experiments. Electricity fascinated him. He flew a kite in a thunderstorm to prove that lightning is an electrical discharge. He later invented the lightning rod. Many terms used in discussing electricity, including positive, negative, battery, and conductor, were coined by Franklin in his scientific papers. He was the first American scientist to be highly regarded in European scientific circles.
SOURCE: WWW.HISTORY.COM