Franklin's Many Talents
1752 AD
1752 1752
75.15W40.10N
SCI

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
	Flying a kite in a lightning storm is dumb. But the first person to try that dangerous experiment was brilliant.
	When Benjamin Franklin flew his kite in 1752, he wanted to know if lightning was electricity.  He risked his life to find out that it is, then made good use of his discovery by inventing the lightning rod.
	Franklin was born in 1706, the third youngest of 17 children.  He was an accomplished printer and writer, he published a newspaper and almanac, served as Philadelphia's postmaster, established the city's first library and fire department, reformed the police department, had the streets paved and founded the city's schools.  He studied ocean currents, invented bifocal lenses and the Franklin stove.
	He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and helped persuade France to aid the Americans during the Revolutionary War, thus ensuring its success.
	But perhaps his crowning performance was at the Constitutional Convention.  Big states wanted representation according to population while small states wanted equal representation for each state.  Franklin proposed the solution: two houses of Congress, one based on equal representation for each state and one based on population.