Ben had poor vision and needed glasses to read. He figured out a way to make his glasses let him see both near and far. He had two pairs of spectacles cut in half and put half of each lens in a single frame. Today, they are called bifocals.
Ben was a postmaster he had to figure out routes for delivering the mail. He went out riding in his carriage to measure the routes and needed a way to keep track of the distance. He invented a simple odometer and attached it to his carriage.
SCIENTIST.
In 1743, Ben observed that northeast storms begin in the southwest. He thought it was odd that storms travel in an opposite direction to their winds. He predicted that a storm's course could be plotted. Ben rode a horse through a storm and chased a whirlwind three-quarters of a mile in order to learn more about storms. So, in a way, Ben was a weatherman too. .
Since Ben spent so much time sailing to Europe across the Atlantic Ocean, he became very interested in both ocean currents and shipbuilding. He was actually one of the first people to chart the Gulf Stream. He measured its temperature on each of his eight voyages and was able to chart the Stream in detail.
STATESMAN.
Ben is the only person to have signed all four of the documents which helped to create the United States: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance, Amity, and Commerce with France (1778), the Treaty of Peace between England, France, and the United States (1782), and the Constitution (1787). He actually helped to write parts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. No other individual was more involved in the birth of our nation.
He also served as Postmaster, helping to set up the postal system in Philadelphia. In order to make Philadelphia a safer city, he started the Union Fire Company in 1736. A few years later, in 1752, he set up America's first fire insurance company. While in Paris, Ben proposed the idea of Daylight Savings Time.
