Benjamin Franklin Ben Franklin - born Jan.17 [Jan. 6, Old Style], 1706, Boston d. April 17, 1790, Philadelphia pseudonym RICHARD SAUNDERS American printer and publisher, author, inventor and scientist, and diplomat. Franklin, next to George Washington possibly the most famous 18th-century American, by 1757 had made a small fortune, established the Poor Richard of his almanacs (written under his pseudonym) as an oracle on how to get ahead in the world, and become widely known in European scientific circles for …showed first 75 words of 3562 total…

…showed last 75 words of 3562 total…at age 84. Philadelphia gave him the most impressive funeral the city had ever seen, and in France, where Louis XVI was imprisoned, eulogies poured forth to the man who, to the French, was the symbol of enlightenment and freedom. All Europeans remembered the epigram of Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, the French economist: "He snatched the lightning from the skies and the sceptre from tyrants." FAMOUS SCIENTISTS PHYSICAL SCIENCES INDEX ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF ALL FILES CRYSTALINKS MAIN PAGE