Benjamin Franklin

Born in Massachusetts Bay in 1706, Franklin made his fortune in Philadelphia as a newspaper editor and printer, publishing The Pennsylvania Gazette at 23 and Poor Richard's Almanack under a pseudonym. His electrical experiments made him a major figure in the Enlightenment; he invented the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, and charted the Gulf Stream. As agent for the colonies in London, he led the fight to repeal the Stamp Act, then became the first U.S. ambassador to France, where his diplomacy secured the French aid that won the Revolution. He served as President of Pennsylvania from 1785 to 1788. The only person to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the Constitution, he died in 1790 - his face later fixed on the $100 bill, his 30,000 letters archived, Turgot's epitaph still sharp: "He snatched lightning from the sky and the scepter from tyrants."