In October 1784, an American merchant vessel, the Betsey, was on a trade run from her home port of Boston to Tenerife in the Canary Islands when she was approached by an un-flagged vessel. Suddenly, “...
In 1783, the expatriate artist Benjamin West began what became his most memorable painting, “The Peacemakers.” West intended to produce a group portrait of the diplomats whose negotiations resulted in the Treaty of Paris of 1783, but the British diplomats refused to sit for the...
The first Albany Congress, called to negotiate a treaty with the Iroquois in the event of a war with the French, approved Benjamin Franklin’s “Plan of the Union” for the colonies.
The first issue of Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack was published.
Benjamin Franklin published his “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” perhaps the most influential essay written by an American colonist.
Benjamin Franklin demonstrated that lightning was a form of electricity in his kite-and-key demonstration during a thunderstorm.
The Second Continental Congress was the body of colonial delegates that first met in May 1775, by arrangement of the First Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who had not taken part in the First Continental Congress, were among its members. During the American Revolution, the Second Continental Congress served as the provisional government of the colonies, issued the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and adopted the Articles of Confederation in 1777.
When asked what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had created, Benjamin Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution contains an unamendable provision that begins: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government.” This refers to the principles and practices appropriate to a government in which ultimate authority resides in the people and in which elected officials and representatives are responsible to the people and must govern...
