What Were The Major Contributions Of Benjamin Franklin?

Here's a chronological summary of Ben's accomplishments:

1718 - 1723 Apprenticed as a printer to his brother James Franklin
1725 - 1726 Journeyman printer, London, England
1727 Founded the Junta, a debating club, Philadelphia, Pa.
1728 Wrote Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion
1729 Purchased Pennsylvania Gazette
1730 Married Deborah Read Rogers (died 1774)
1731 Established the Library Company of Philadelphia, Pa.
1732 - 1758 Published Poor Richard, 1732-1747, and Poor Richard Improved,
1748-1758, commonly known under collective title Poor Richard's Almanack
1736 - 1751 Clerk, Pennsylvania Assembly
1740 Invented the Pennsylvania fireplace (Franklin stove)
1743 Proposed formation of the American Philosophical Society
1751 Founded with others, the Academy for Education of Youth -now University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.[/br] Founded Philadelphia City Hospital, Philadelphia, Pa.[/br] Published letters to Peter Collinson, Experiments and Observations on Electricity. London: Printed and Sold by E. Cave
1751 - 1764 Represented Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Assembly
1754 Represented Pennsylvania at the Albany Congress
1757 - 1762 Political agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly, London, England
1766 Reappointed as agent for Pennsylvania, London, England
1771 Began autobiography
1775 Left London, England, for Massachusetts
Elected member of the Second Continental Congress Named postmaster general
1776 Served on committee to draft the Declaration of Independence Went to France as one of three American commissioners to negotiate a treaty
1778 Negotiated treaties of commerce and defense with France Appointed sole plenipotentiary in France
1781 Appointed with John Jay and John Adams to negotiate a peace with Great Britain
1783 Signed Treaty of Paris with Great Britain and asked Congress for his recall
1785 Returned to the United States
1785 - 1788 President, Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania
1787 Represented Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention
1790 Signed memorial to Congress as last official act as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery

Some of Benjamin Franklin's INVENTIONS include:

• Bifocal glasses
  
  
• The iron furnace stove, a small contraption with a sliding door which burns wood on a grate, thus allowing people to cook food and heat their homes at the same time.

• Swim fins
  
• Bifocals
  
• A glass armonica
  
• Watertight bulkheads for ships
  
• The lightning rod
  
• An odometer
  
  

Franklin was born in 1706, and was a intellectual and inventor who had great influence before, during and after the American Revoluationary War. He made his wealth from printing and publishing, but had retired for more gentlemanly pursuits (like inventing and writing) by 1748.

Franklin discovered that lightning was made of electricity (he didn't realise how dangerous or maybe he wouldn't have flown so many kites during thunderstorms!). He observed that rainstorms on the Atlantic seaboard came from the south, even though they were associated with northerly winds. He invented the lightning rod, the urinary catheter, bifocals, a type of stove and swimming fins. He did not patent his inventions; that went against his philosophy of free dispersal of knowledge that benefited all.

Daylight Savings Time was his brainchild, although he originally proposed it as a joke for the every-partying French so that sunrise might be delayed for them.

Franklin was co-author on the American Declaration of Independence. He served as American Ambassador to France from 1776 to 1785, when France's support was a boon during to the nascent republic. In his last years Franklin became a vocal abolitionist, and also rescinded some of his more agnostic and atheistic proclamations of middle age. He died in 1790.

He organized the first library, post office, and fire department.

Discover lightening

U.s. Diplomat

Flew kites

He was famous for making the writing Poor Richard's Almanac. He was also famous because he invented bifocal glasses.

The major contributions are ben franklin was a speac-ail leader of the english settlers in the american colonies

Benjamin Franklin was a noteworthy leader of the English settlers in the American colonies. He was the fifteenth child of his parents and had sixteen siblings. Coming out of a family background, which was darkened with the misfortune of indigence, Benjamin Franklin was able to receive only two years of formal education.

Nevertheless it was his quest for knowledge that made him want to read every book that he could lay his hands on. He was a man of many talents, excelling in science, printing, writing as well as the art of inventions. Moreover his leadership qualities were another factor that became the reason of his fame and respect that he was given all around the world. He even published his own newspaper in Philadelphia and was the first ever American to incorporate the use of maps and cartoons in a newspaper. Last but not the least, Benjamin Franklin played a great role in awakening the colonists to gain freedom from the claws of the British government.