Benjamin Franklin

(1706 - 1790)

Benjamin Franklin quit school at the age of ten and became an apprentice to his brother, a printer, two years later. Franklin worked as a printer from 1718 to 1748. In that time he wrote seventeen editions of Poor Richard’s Almanack, became a Freemason, fathered an illegitimate child, made fundamental discoveries about electricity, helped organize Philadelphia’s first fire brigade, and printed the first American political cartoon. Franklin invented, among other things, the lightning rod, bifocal glasses, and the odometer.