1. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was an 18th-century American industrialist, scientist, social activist, thinker, and diplomat．
He was the first scientist and inventor of international reputation in American history. In order to explore the electricity once made the famous "kite experiment", in the electrical achievements, in order to explore the laws of electric motion, the creation of many special terms, such as positive electricity, negative electricity, electrical conductors, batteries, charging, discharging, etc. become the world's common vocabulary. He borrowed the mathematical concept of positive and negative, the first scientific concept of positive and negative electricity to represent the nature of the charge. He also put forward the idea that electric charge cannot be created or eliminated, on the basis of which the later discovered the law of conservation of electric charge. He was the first to put forward the idea of lightning rods, and the lightning rods thus manufactured averted lightning disasters and dispelled superstitions. He was an excellent politician and a veteran of the American War of Independence. He participated in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, actively advocated the abolition of slavery, and was highly respected by the American people. He also enjoyed a high reputation in the world.
He came from a humble background, and at the age of 10, he dropped out of school and went home to work as a laborer, and at the age of 12, he was apprenticed to a printing house as an apprentice and a helper. But he studied hard, in addition to mastering printing technology, but also widely read literature, history, philosophy, self-taught mathematics and four foreign languages, and practiced writing, all of which laid a solid foundation for him to achieve a wide range of achievements in his life.
In order to stand on his own feet in the society of the time, he went through a lot of difficulties and started his own business, the printing house. Due to hard work, reputation, attention to management, he not only in the printing industry in the fierce competition to stand, and expand the business to neighboring states and the West Indies, North America, a leader in the printing and publishing industry.
He paid attention to the observation of natural phenomena, the study of scientific problems. He started from practice, engaged in scientific experiments and observations, in electricity to answer the question of "what is electricity", the different states of electricity called "positive electricity" and "negative electricity", put forward the Electricity in the "first-class theory", in the atmospheric electricity reveals the nature of the lightning phenomenon, known as "the second Prometheus". These epoch-making research results in electricity made him a world-famous first-class scientist. He also has research in optics, thermology, acoustics, mathematics, oceanography, botany and other aspects of the new stove, lightning rods, electric wheels, three-wheeled clock, bifocal glasses, automatic barbecue machine, glass musical instruments, elevated bookshelves, new street lamps and a series of inventions. As a result, with only two years of elementary school education, he was Harvard University and Yale University in the United States, Oxford University in the United Kingdom, Edinburgh University, St. Andrew's University and other six or seven universities awarded a master's degree or doctoral degree.
Franklin did a great deal of work in the North American colonies in the dissemination of culture and social welfare after he became famous. He successively organized the establishment of the "*** Readers", "American Philosophical Society", "North American Association for the Advancement of Science", newspapers, libraries, bookstores, hospitals, universities, fire departments, local Militia organizations and other academic, cultural, health care, fire and police organizations and institutions; he also reformed the postal system in the North American colonies, the establishment of a unified postal system in the North American colonies. He was an outstanding social activist and became an influential figure in the North American colonies.
He was not only good at solving specialized problems in the natural sciences and practical problems in social and political activities, but also often explored many philosophical and social problems. He was a natural theist who believed that the spirit is dependent on matter; he believed that social poverty is caused by the necessity of laborers to support parasites; he loved freedom and peace, opposed war, hated racial discrimination and slavery, and advocated the defense of the interests of blacks and Indians. He was one of the most knowledgeable bourgeois liberal thinkers of his time．
Franklin lived in the era of the United States from the colonies to the independent bourgeois state of the major turning period, he actively engaged in the revolutionary movement, the victory of the War of Independence and the United States of America's national system of the initial construction of a major contribution.
At the Albany Conference of 1754, which was attended by the leading figures of the North American colonies, he put forward the plan of the famous "Albany Union", which was adopted by the conference, and he became the earliest to instill the idea of the great union of the United States of America in the minds of the colonial people.
In Pennsylvania, he has always been with the colonial people together with the owners of the group of lawlessness to fight. 1757, on behalf of the State Council to London, he petitioned the King of England, asked the owners to pay taxes, success; 1764, he went to London for the second time, asked the King of England to protect the interests of the colony, but the results. Subsequently, the British government strengthened the suppression of the North American colonies, which inspired the colonists to resist more strongly. Franklin's position shifted completely to the revolutionary side.
Pennsylvania was originally a proprietor's colony, a land granted to William Penn by King Charles II in 1681. Later, William Penn's two sons inherited the property. The proprietors enjoyed the privilege of appointing officials, including the governor, vetoing parliamentary bills, and being exempt from paying taxes in their colonies.
In May 1775, he returned to the Americas and immediately threw himself into the revolutionary struggle. He served as chairman of the Pennsylvania Committee of the Peace, presided over the local military committee, and drafted the state constitution with Penn***; he attended the Second Continental Congress as a delegate from Pennsylvania, and became one of the drafters of the U.S. Declaration of Independence; he served as the U.S. Secretary of the Postal Service, and organized the postal service during the war, with notable achievements; in the U.S. Army's repeated setbacks in combat, he served as a member of the Committee of Three with the meeting in Washington, and decided to implement the North American He was a member of the Committee of Three who met with Washington and decided to mobilize the 13 states of North America, making it possible for the War of Independence to last for six years.
In a situation where Britain was strong and America was weak, the colonists had to fight for foreign aid. Franklin was sent to France by the Continental Congress to fight for an alliance between the U.S. and France to **** the war against Britain. In the complex and unfavorable to the United States in the diplomatic environment at that time, he with the United States will win the faith, perseverance and patience, clever and flexible diplomacy, the use of conflicts between the European countries, seize the favorable opportunity to conclude the American-French alliance, and strive for a large number of manpower, material and financial foreign aid, to ensure that the War of Independence victory. In the latter part of the war, he participated in and once presided over the U.S.-British peace negotiations, signed the Anglo-American peace treaty in favor of the U.S., and triumphantly accomplished the arduous mission of wartime diplomacy. After the war, he became the first Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to France and stayed in France until his return in 1885.
After returning home, he was elected governor of Pennsylvania for four consecutive years. In the U.S. Constitutional Convention, he was a member of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, and he proposed a bicameral system of Congress in order to reconcile the differences of opinion of the delegates to the Convention, which became one of the basic national systems of the United States.
After 1788, he ceased to hold public office, but continued to publish political essays for the government to choose from, and worked to promote the abolition of slavery.
On April 17, 1790, Franklin died. On the day of his funeral, as many as 20,000 people mourned him, fully expressing the American people's grief for him. At the same time, not only did the U.S. Congress decide to mourn him for a month, but the French National Assembly also resolved to mourn him, showing that he belonged not only to the United States, but also to the whole world
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Benjamin Franklin. Franklin - the most perfect representative of the spirit of capitalism, the greatest American scientist of the eighteenth century, a famous statesman and literary figure. The truest picture of his life is his own words "Honesty and diligence should be your constant companions."
A life of learning
On January 17, 1706, Benjamin Franklin was born in North America. Franklin was born in Boston, North America. His father, an English lacquer maker who made candles and soap, had ten children, Franklin being the eighth. Franklin was enrolled in school at the age of eight, and although he excelled in his studies, his father's income could not cover the cost of his education because there were too many children in his family. So he left school when he was ten and went home to help his father make candles. Franklin only attended school for those two years of his life. At the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to a small printing office run by his older brother James, and since then he worked as a printer for nearly ten years, but his studies never stopped, and he saved money from his food expenses to buy books. At the same time, taking advantage of his work, he befriended several bookstore apprentices, borrowing books from the bookstores secretly in the evenings, reading them all night, and returning them early the next morning. He read a wide range of books, from popular books on natural science and technology to papers by famous scientists and works by famous authors.
It was during his apprenticeship that Franklin learned arithmetic, which he had twice failed at school, and read Sailor's and Schermer's books on navigation, from which he was introduced to geometry. He also read Locke's The Gnosis of Man and The Art of Thinking by the authors of the Pollyanna school. Franklin's studies grew deeper with each passing day.
In 1723 Franklin left Boston to work as a laborer at the Keevil Printing Office in Philadelphia and at the Parvil and Watts Printing Office in London, England. in the fall of 1726 Franklin returned to Philadelphia, where by this time he had mastered the art of printing and began to run his own independent printing office, printing and distributing The Pennsylvania Gazette and publishing Poor Richard's Almanacks, which was translated into twelve languages and sold in Europe and America. In the fall of 1727, in Philadelphia, he and a few young people founded the "*** Readers' Society", organized a small library to help workers, craftsmen and small clerks for self-education. Every Friday night, the discussion of philosophy, politics and natural science and other issues. At this time Franklin was less than thirty years old, through hard work and self-study, has become a learned scholar and Enlightenment thinker, in North America's reputation is growing. Under Franklin's leadership, the "*** Readers' Society" existed for almost forty years, and later developed into the American Philosophical Society, which became the center of scientific thought in the United States.
In 1736, Franklin was elected secretary of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and in 1737, he became deputy postmaster of Philadelphia. Although his work became more and more demanding, Franklin continued to study every day. In order to further open the door to the treasure house of knowledge, he tirelessly studied foreign languages, and successively mastered French, Italian, Spanish and Latin. He widely accepted the advanced achievements of world science and culture. He laid a solid foundation for his scientific research.
Capturing lightning
In 1746, a British scholar performed an electrical experiment in Boston using a glass tube and a Leyden jar. Franklin watched his performance with great interest and was strongly attracted to the fledgling science of electricity. Franklin then began the study of electricity. Franklin conducted numerous experiments at home, studying the properties of two types of electric charge, illustrating the origin of electricity and the phenomena that exist in matter. Before the eighteenth century, people were not able to properly recognize what lightning really was. At that time it was widely believed that thunder and lightning was a statement of God's anger. Some do not believe in God's insights have tried to explain the cause of lightning, but were unsuccessful, more popular in the academic community is that lightning is a "gas explosion" point of view.
In an experiment, Franklin's wife Lydia accidentally touched the Leyden jar, a flash of lightning, Lydia was hit and fell to the ground, pale, and lay at home for a week to recover. Although this is an accident in the experiment, but the quick thinking Franklin thought of the lightning in the air. After repeated thought, he concluded that lightning is also a discharge phenomenon, it and the electricity generated in the laboratory is essentially the same. So he wrote a paper called "On the Identity of Lightning in the Sky with our Electricity" and sent it to the Royal Society. But Franklin's great idea was ridiculed by many, some even calling him "a madman who wants to separate God from lightning.
Franklin was determined to prove his point, and one day in June 1752, the clouds were thick and the lightning was thundering, and a storm was coming. Franklin, along with his son William, took a kite with a metal bar on it out into an open field. Franklin held the kite high in the air while his son pulled on the string and ran. Due to the strong winds, the kite was soon launched high into the air. In a flash, thunder and lightning struck and rain poured down. Franklin joined his son in pulling the kite string, father and son in anxious anticipation, when, just as a bolt of lightning passed over the kite, Franklin drew his hand close to the wire on the kite, and a horrible numbness immediately swept over him. Unable to restrain his inward excitement, he exclaimed, "William, I've been electrocuted!" He then introduced the electricity from the kite wire into the Legu bottle. After returning home, Franklin conducted various electrical experiments with thunder and lightning, proving that lightning in the sky had exactly the same properties as electricity produced by artificial friction. Franklin's hypothesis that electricity in heaven and on earth are the same thing was gloriously confirmed in this experiment of his own.
The success of the kite experiment catapulted Franklin to worldwide scientific fame. The Royal Society of England sent him a gold medal and hired him as a Fellow of the Royal Society. His scientific writings were also translated into several languages. His electrical research had achieved an initial triumph. However, in front of honor and victory, Franklin did not stop further research on electricity. 1753, the famous Russian electrologist Lichtman, in order to verify Franklin's experiments, was unfortunately killed by lightning, which was the first casualty of the electrical experiments. The price of blood made many people wary and fearful of lightning experiments. But Franklin did not retreat in front of the threat of death, after many tests, he made a practical lightning rod. He took an iron rod several meters long and fastened it to the roof with insulating material, and to the rod was fastened a thick wire that went all the way to the ground. When lightning struck the house, it traveled along the metal rod and through the wire to the earth, leaving the building intact. 1754, the lightning rod began to be used, but some people thought it was ominous, and that it would bring drought against the will of heaven. They secretly removed the lightning rods at night. However, science would finally triumph over ignorance. After a thunderstorm, the cathedral caught fire, while the high-rise houses equipped with lightning rods were safe. The facts educated people and made them believe in science. The lightning rod spread to England, Germany, France, and finally to the rest of the world.
Franklin's contribution to science was not only in electrostatics, but also in his research. In mathematics, he created eight and sixteen times the phantom square, the two phantom square nature of special, complex changes, still scholars praise; in thermology, he improved the heating stove, can save three-quarters of the fuel, known as the "Franklin stove"; in optics, he invented the bifocal glasses for the elderly, wearing these In the field of optics, he invented bifocal glasses for the elderly, which could be worn to see things near as well as far away. He and the University of Cambridge Hartley *** with the use of ether evaporation to get negative twenty-five degrees (Celsius) low temperature, created the theory of evaporation cooling. In addition, he studied meteorology, geology, acoustics and ocean navigation, and made many achievements.
Outstanding Social Activist
Frank was not only a good scientist, but also an outstanding social activist. He spent a lot of his life engaged in social activities. Franklin paid special attention to education, he built libraries, organized and created a number of associations are to improve the cultural quality of people from all walks of life.
Just as he was making new achievements in scientific research, the national liberation movement in the North American colonies was growing due to the brutal rule of the British colonizers. For the independence and liberation of the nation, he resolutely put down his experimental instruments and actively stood in the forefront of the struggle. From 1757 to 1775 he went to Britain several times as a representative of the North American colonies to negotiate. After the outbreak of the War of Independence, he took part in the Second Continental Congress and the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. 1776, already seventy years old, Franklin traveled to France and won the support of the people of France and Europe for the War of Independence of North America. 1787, he took an active part in the formulation of the U.S. Constitution and organized the movement against the enslavement of blacks.
Fall of a star
Franklin spent his last winter surrounded by loved ones.On April 17, 1790, at 11 p.m., Franklin died. His grandsons, Tambor and Benjamin, were by his side at the time, and on April 21, the people of Philadelphia held a funeral service for him, with 20,000 people joining the funeral procession to mourn Franklin's death for a month. Benjamin B. Benjamin Franklin thus finished his life on the road of 84 degrees of spring and autumn, lying quietly in the church yard in the crypt, the first tombstone erected in Franklin died, the inscription is: the printer Benjamin Franklin The second tombstone is the crowd for him after the establishment of the inscription is: from the heavens to obtain the lightening from the tyrant to obtain the civil rights of the people two lines of the inscription sums up the two brilliant career in his life. "
2. John Franklin (1845~1847) is a legendary figure in British history. He was born in 1787, and at the age of 14, he put pen to paper and began the most arduous naval career of his life. 1843, the Royal Navy Ministry in order to realize the realization of the opening of the North Road connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Indian Ocean, shortening the voyage between Britain and India, ready to send people to continue to explore the Northwest Passage. So Franklin, who had been governor of Tasmania, Australia, for six years, was called home. After less than two years of preparation, an expedition of 138 men was formed, equipped with advanced ice-breaking equipment and enormous steam power on the masted ships "Erebus" and "Troll". On May 26, 1845, Franklin, then 58 years old, commanded this expedition of the Royal Navy's best and brightest and sailed out of the mouth of the Thames River via the west coast of Greenland, soon arriving at Bering Island. on July 26, the fleet encountered a British whaler in the waters of Baffin Bay. According to the traditional custom of the international maritime community, Franklin will be the expedition's logbook to the whaler's captain and presented by him on behalf of the Royal Navy. After that, the fleet mysteriously disappeared.
To 1848, that is, Franklin left Britain more than two years later, the Royal Navy has not been able to get a little about the exact news of the expedition, decided to send rescuers by sea and land search and rescue. But it was not until 1858 that the truth about the end of the Franklin Expedition was revealed. It turned out that the Franklin Expedition reached Baffin Bay at the end of July 1845, and because the sea ice blocked the way, they set up camp on a small island southwest of Devon Island for the winter. The following summer, the expedition's two ships sailed down Peel Channel to King William Island, trapped by ice floes and unable to move, when it was discovered that some of the canned food began to deteriorate, which greatly disturbed them. on June 11, 1847, Sir Franklin sadly passed away. after August, the ships were still frozen by the ice, and the people had to spend the second winter on the ice, where, due to the lack of food and the emergence of scurvy, people began to People began to die. In order to survive, as soon as spring arrived, 105 of them (out of the original 138) embarked on a desperate breakout in a dinghy loaded with food. Arriving at Cape Felix, they felt so hopeless that they packed their papers in canning boxes. Thus went tragically the illustrious Franklin and the exploring expedition he led. According to an on-site investigation, between Cape Felix and the mouth of the Big Fish River, there were many discarded items along the way, and bodies abounded; no one was spared.