USIS; The Franklin Institute

The American statesman, philosopher, printer, scientist, and writer Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, USA, on 17 January 1706. Franklin was the only American of the colonial period to earn a European reputation as a natural philosopher, but he is best remembered in the United States as a patriot and diplomat.

As a boy he worked as a printer for his father then brother, but went to Philadelphia to work in 1723. He visited London between 1724 and 1726 and then returned to Philadelphia in 1729. He became the owner and editor of the Philadelphia Gazette . He also sold books, established a circulating library, and set up a debating club that became the American Philosophical Society. In 1751, he also helped to establish an academy that eventually became the University of Pennsylvania.

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