Benjamin Franklin was one of the most talented and energetic people in history. He lived for almost 85 years, form 1706 to 1790. He was a printer, a writer, a newspaper publisher, a scientist, an inventor, and a leader of his country. In fact, Franklin helped to establish the new United States of America.
Franklin was born in Boston, in the colony of Massachusetts. He was the youngest son in a large, poor family. When he was ten, Ben left school to work in the family's shop making soap and candles. He soon found his job dull. He loved to read newspapers and books, so he asked to work in a printing shop run by his brother. There, Ben learned how to set type, run a printing press, and write for a newspaper.
When Franklin was 17, he quarreled with his brother and ran away, first to New York City and then to Philadelphia. Within a dew years, he was writing and printing his own newspaper. The Pennsylvania Gazette became one of the most widely read newspaper in the colonies. Franklin also began to publish a kind of yearly calendar called Poor Richard's Almanack. Many of Poor Richard's sayings are famous even today. While he was building his business, Franklin was also helping his city. He began both the first lending library and the first volunteer fire department in the United States. He helped raise money for a city hospital. He also helped begin a school that later became the University of Pennsylvania.
Franklin was interested in solving everyday problems, too. He noticed that his fireplace did not heat his room very well. The fireplace burned a lot of wood, but too much heat went up the chimney. Franklin built a new kind of stove that fit into the fireplace. The "Franklin stove," made of iron, gave more heat but burned less wood than other stoves. Stoves like this are still made today. Another Franklin invention was bifocal eyeglasses. People using them can see something at a distance or read something close.
