title: IPhone

text: On July 11, 2008, at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2008, Apple announced the iPhone 3G, and expanded its launch-day availability to twenty-two countries, and it was eventually released in 70 countries and territories. The iPhone 3G introduced faster 3G connectivity, and a lower starting price of US$199 (with a two-year AT&T contract). Its successor, the iPhone 3GS, was announced on June 8, 2009, at WWDC 2009, and introduced video recording functionality.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 4 was announced on June 7, 2010, at WWDC 2010, and introduced a redesigned body incorporating a stainless steel frame and a rear glass panel. At release, the iPhone 4 was marketed as the "world's thinnest smartphone"; it uses the Apple A4 processor, being the first iPhone to use an Apple custom-designed chip. It introduced the Retina display, having four-times the display resolution of preceding iPhones, and was the highest-resolution smartphone screen at release; a front-facing camera was also introduced, enabling video calling functionality via FaceTime.


title: IPhone

text: Users of the iPhone 4 reported dropped/disconnected telephone calls when holding their phones in a certain way, and this issue was nicknamed "antennagate". In January 2011, as Apple's exclusivity agreement with AT&T was expiring, Verizon announced that the would be carrying the iPhone 4, with a model compatible with Verizon's CDMA network releasing on February 10.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 4S was announced on October 4, 2011, and introduced the Siri virtual assistant, a dual-core A5 processor, and an 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video recording functionality. The iPhone 5 was announced on September 12, 2012, and introduced a larger 4-inch screen, up from the 3.5-inch screen of all previous iPhone models, as well as faster 4G LTE connectivity. It also introduced a thinner and lighter body made of aluminum alloy, and the 30-pin dock connector of previous iPhones was replaced with the new, reversible Lightning connector.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C were announced on September 10, 2013. The iPhone 5S included a 64-bit A7 processor, becoming the first ever 64-bit smartphone; it also introduced the Touch ID fingerprint authentication sensor. The iPhone 5C was a lower-cost device that incorporated hardware from the iPhone 5, into a series of colorful plastic frames.


title: IPhone

text: On September 9, 2014, Apple introduced the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and included significantly larger screens than the iPhone 5S, at 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch respectively; both models also introduced mobile payment technology via Apple Pay. Optical image stabilization was introduced to the 6 Plus' camera. The Apple Watch was also introduced on the same day, and is a smartwatch that operates in conjunction with a connected iPhone. Some users experienced bending issues from normal use with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, particularly on the latter model, and this issue was nicknamed "bendgate".


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus were introduced on September 9, 2015, and included a more bend-resistant frame made of a stronger aluminum alloy, as well as a higher resolution 12-megapixel main camera capable of 4K video recording. The first-generation iPhone SE was introduced on March 21, 2016, and was a low-cost device that incorporated newer hardware from the iPhone 6S, in the frame of the older iPhone 5S.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were announced on September 7, 2016, which introduced larger camera sensors, IP67-certified water and dust resistance, and a quad-core A10 Fusion processor utilizing big.LITTLE technology; the 3.5mm headphone jack was removed, and was followed by the introduction of the AirPods wireless earbuds. Optical image stabilization was added to the 7's camera. A second telephoto camera lens was added on the 7 Plus, enabling two-times optical zoom, and "Portrait" photography mode which simulates bokeh in photos.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X were announced on September 12, 2017, in Apple's first event held at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park. All models featured rear glass panel designs akin to the iPhone 4, wireless charging, and a hexa-core A11 Bionic chip with "Neural Engine" AI accelerator hardware. The iPhone X additionally introduced a 5.8-inch OLED "Super Retina" display with a "bezel-less" design, with a higher pixel density and contrast ratio than previous iPhones with LCD displays, and introduced a stronger frame made of stainless steel. It also introduced Face ID facial recognition authentication hardware, in a "notch" screen cutout, in place of Touch ID; the home button was removed to make room for additional screen space, replacing it with a gesture-based navigation system. At its US$999 starting price, the iPhone X was the most expensive iPhone at launch.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and XS Max were announced on September 12, 2018. All models featured the "Smart HDR" computational photography system, and a significantly more powerful "Neural Engine". The XS Max introduced a larger 6.5-inch screen. The iPhone XR included a 6.1-inch LCD "Liquid Retina" display, with a "bezel-less" design similar to the iPhone X, but does not include a second telephoto lens; it was made available in a series of vibrant colors, akin to the iPhone 5C, and was a lower-cost device compared to the iPhone X and XS.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max were announced on September 10, 2019. The iPhone 11 was the successor to the iPhone XR, while the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max succeeded the iPhone XS and XS Max. All models gained an ultra-wide lens, enabling two-times optical zoom out, as well as larger batteries for longer battery life. The second-generation iPhone SE was introduced on April 17, 2020, and was a low-cost device that incorporated newer hardware from the iPhone 11, in the frame of the older iPhone 8, while retaining the home button and the Touch ID sensor.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 12, 12 Mini, 12 Pro, and 12 Pro Max were announced via a livestream event on October 13, 2020. All models featured OLED "Super Retina XDR" displays, introduced faster 5G connectivity, and the MagSafe magnetic charging and accessory system; a slimmer flat-edged design was also introduced, which combined with stronger glass-ceramic front glass, added better drop protection compared to previous iPhones. The iPhone 12 Mini introduced a smaller 5.4-inch screen, while the 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max had larger screens of 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch respectively. The iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max additionally added a Lidar sensor for better accuracy in augumented reality (AR) applications.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 13, 13 Mini, 13 Pro, and 13 Pro Max were announced via a livestream event on September 14, 2021. All models featured larger camera sensors, larger batteries for longer battery life, and a narrower "notch" screen cutout. The iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max additionally introduced smoother adaptive 120 Hz refresh rate "ProMotion" technology in its OLED display, and three-times optical zoom in the telephoto lens. The low-cost third-generation iPhone SE was introduced on March 8, 2022, and incorporated the A15 Bionic chip from the iPhone 13, but otherwise retained similar hardware to the second-generation iPhone SE.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro, and 14 Pro Max were announced on September 7, 2022. All models introduced satellite phone emergency calling functionality. The iPhone 14 Plus introduced the large 6.7-inch screen size, first seen on the iPhone 12 Pro Max, into a lower-cost device. The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max additionally introduced a higher-resolution 48-megapixel main camera, the first increase in megapixel count since the iPhone 6S; it also introduced always-on display technology to the lock screen, and an interactive status bar interface integrated in a redesigned screen cutout, entitled "Dynamic Island".


title: IPhone

text: Up to the iPhone 4, all iPhones and other iOS devices were manufactured by Foxconn, based in Taiwan. In 2011, new CEO Tim Cook changed Apple's manufacturing strategy to diversify its suppliers. The iPhone 4S in 2012 was the first model to be manufactured simultaneously by two stand-alone companies: Foxconn and Pegatron, the latter also based in Taiwan. Although Foxconn still produces more iPhones, Pegatron's orders have been slowly increased: the company made part of the iPhone 5C line in 2013, and 30% of iPhone 6 devices in 2014. The 6 Plus model was produced solely by Foxconn. In 2019, Apple investigated reports that some Foxconn managers had used rejected parts to build iPhones. In India, Apple pays Wistron, a Taiwan-based manufacturer with a plant near Bangalore, to assemble iPhones to sell in the region.


title: IPhone

text: In 2022, Apple announced that a portion of iPhone 14 would be manufactured in Tamil Nadu, India, as a response to China's "zero-COVID" policy that has negatively affected global supply chains for many industries. Apple has stated that they plan to shift 25% of iPhone production to India by 2025.


title: IPhone

text: Apple directly sub-contracts hardware production to external OEM companies, maintaining a high degree of control over the end product. The iPhone contains most of the hardware parts of a typical modern smartphone. Some hardware elements, such as 3D Touch and the Taptic Engine, are unique to the iPhone. The main hardware of the iPhone is the touchscreen, with current models offering screens of 4.7 inches and larger. All iPhones include a rear-facing camera; the front-facing camera dates back to the iPhone 4. The iPhone 7 Plus introduced multiple lenses to the rear-facing camera. A range of sensors are also included on the device, such as a proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, accelerometer, gyroscopic sensor, magnetometer, facial recognition sensor or fingerprint sensor (depending on the model) and barometer. In 2022, Apple added satellite communications to the iPhone, with the release of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone runs iOS. It is based on macOS's Darwin and many of its userland APIs, with Cocoa replaced by Cocoa Touch, and AppKit replaced by UIKit. The graphics stack runs on Metal, Apple's low-level graphics API. The iPhone comes with a set of bundled applications developed by Apple, and supports downloading third-party applications through the App Store.


title: IPhone

text: Apple provides free updates to iOS over-the-air, or through Finder and iTunes on a computer. Major iOS releases have historically accompanied new iPhone models.


title: IPhone

text: At WWDC 2007 on June 11, 2007, Apple announced that the iPhone would support third-party Ajax web applications that share the look and feel of the iPhone interface. On October 17, 2007, Steve Jobs, in an open letter posted to Apple's "Hot News" weblog, announced that a software development kit (SDK) would be made available to third-party developers in February 2008. The iPhone SDK was officially announced and released on March 6, 2008. The App Store was launched with the release of iPhone OS 2.0, on July 11, 2008.


title: IPhone

text: Apple requires all third-party apps to be downloaded from the App Store, with exceptions for ad-hoc apps used within enterprises. Developers must pay a yearly $99 fee as part of Apple's Developer Program; if their membership expires, their apps are removed from the App Store, though existing users retain the ability to redownload the app. Developers can release free apps, or paid apps for which Apple takes a 30% cut of proceeds. Developers earning less than $1 million in annual sales qualify for the App Store Small Business Program, with Apple only taking a 15% fee.


title: IPhone

text: Though iOS has far lower market share than Android, its app ecosystem has been described as superior, with higher-quality apps, and more iOS-exclusive releases. Android's version fragmentation, less uniform hardware, and lower app revenues have been cited as key factors.


title: IPhone

text: All apps must pass Apple's app review process before being distributed in the App Store. Apple may also stop distributing apps it deems inappropriate. For example, in 2009, Apple rejected the Newspapers app due to The Sun's "obscene" topless Page 3 girls. In 2018, Apple removed Tumblr from the App Store, citing illegal content, causing Tumblr to ban all adult content from their platform. The App Store's review process has been criticized by developers as "frustrating", "anti-competitive", and "asinine".


title: IPhone

text: Users can also install native apps outside of the App Store through jailbreaking. Jailbreaking may cause security issues, and is not supported by Apple.


title: IPhone

text: , Apple has passed 60 billion app downloads. , there have been over 140 billion app downloads from the App Store. , the App Store has over 2.2million apps for the iPhone.


title: IPhone

text: Apple restricts the installation of unapproved third-party apps and does not allow full access to the iPhone's filesystem. According to Jonathan Zittrain, the emergence of closed devices like the iPhone has made computing more proprietary than it was in the PC era. Jailbreaking allows users to install apps not available on the App Store, customize their device in ways not allowed by Apple, and bypass SIM locks without carrier approval. Some jailbreak tweaks were later copied by Apple and implemented into iOS, like multitasking, widgets, and copy and paste.


title: IPhone

text: Apple attempted to use the DMCA to fight jailbreaking; however in 2010, the U.S. found jailbreaking to be legal. Jailbroken iPhones are at higher risk of malware. In the United States, Apple cannot void an iPhone's warranty solely due to jailbreaking. Jailbreaks rely on exploits. Apple has improved the iPhone's hardware and software security, making these exploits harder to find; as a result, recent iPhones cannot currently be jailbroken.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone contains a range of accessibility features to support users' visual, auditory, and motor needs. iPhones can notify users through onscreen banners, audio alerts, vibrations, or the LED flash; vibration patterns can be customized by users. Since iOS 15, Siri can read notifications out loud through earphones, and, since iOS 16, through the device's speakers.


title: IPhone

text: Users with motor needs can use Assistive Touch to customize the way they navigate through menus; it can assist users who have difficulties with some gestures, like pinching, and makes these gestures available by tapping on a menu. The user can create their own gestures and customize the layout of the AssistiveTouch menu. If the user has trouble pressing the Home button, it can be set so that it can be activated with an onscreen tap. Gestures, like rotate and shake, are available even when if the iOS device is mounted on a wheelchair. Head Tracking can be used to control an iPhone using facial movements recognized by the front camera.


title: IPhone

text: Low-vision users can enable VoiceOver, a screen reader which describes what is on the screen, while Siri allows for hands-free interaction. The iPhone also supports wireless braille displays to help users read its interface. Text can be enlarged system-wide. The Magnifier app uses the iPhone's Lidar scanner to identify objects, for example doors, people, and objects, and can describe them to the user, as well as their distance. Door Detection can alert the user through sound, speech, and haptics.


title: IPhone

text: Hearing aids that are part of the Made for iPhone program can be controlled from an iPhone. These hearing aids also feature Live Listen, which enables the iPhone to act as a directional microphone, beaming its audio to compatible hearing aids. Live Listen can help the user hear a conversation in a noisy room or hear someone speaking across the room. Apple built Live Listen support into all AirPods, which can also relay audio from a connected iPhone's microphone. Closed captioning and external TTY devices are supported, while Live Caption can transcribe audio across all apps and display it onscreen. Sound Recognition can recognize surrounding noises, including door bells, kettles, water running, and babies crying, and notify the user with an onscreen alert.


title: IPhone

text: Guided Access helps people with autism, ADHD, or sensory challenges stay focused on a single app. With Guided Access, a parent, teacher, or therapist can limit an iOS device to stay on one app by disabling the Home button and limit the amount of time spent in an app. The user can restrict access to the keyboard or touch input on certain areas of the screen.


title: IPhone

text: The original iPhone was heavily promoted before its official announcement, creating buzz and anticipation. Upon its release, it was marketed heavily in television, web and print ads created in partnership with TBWA/Chiat/Day.


title: IPhone

text: The Apple ecosystem has been described as a key moat that increases iPhone brand loyalty. iMessage has especially been singled out, with its "green bubbles" phenomena. In iMessage, SMS messages from Android users appear as green bubble, rather than the blue bubbles used for texts from other iPhone users. Group chats between iOS and Android are poorly supported; reactions display as text, rather than bubbles, and images are sent through MMS, which degrades image quality. Some teens have described being "ostracized" after switching to Android, which Google has labelled "bullying." This has been described by critics as a key factor leading 87% of U.S. teenagers to use iPhones.


title: IPhone

text: Many iPhones bought through a monthly carrier contract are SIM locked, restricting their use to one particular carrier. While the iPhone was initially sold in the U.S. only on the AT&T network with a SIM lock in place, various hackers found methods to bypass that SIM lock. More than a quarter of first-generation iPhones sold in the U.S. were not registered with AT&T. Apple speculated that they were likely shipped overseas and unlocked, a lucrative market before the iPhone 3G's worldwide release. Today, many carriers either remove the SIM lock automatically after a certain period, or do it upon request, either for free or for a small fee. iPhones bought from Apple are not SIM locked. Many carriers also sell the iPhone unlocked when purchased outright rather than on a long-term contract.


title: IPhone

text: Since 2013, iPhone buyers can obtain a trade-in discount when buying a new iPhone directly from Apple. The program aims to increase the number of customers who purchase iPhones at Apple Stores rather than carrier stores. In 2015, Apple unveiled the iPhone Upgrade Program, a 24-month leasing agreement, which Fortune described as a "change [in] iPhone owners' relationships with mobile carriers".


title: IPhone

text: Only Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers are allowed by Apple to perform genuine replacements. Apple has taken steps to make third-party repairs more difficult. iPhone components are soldered, and many are glued together. iPhones receive low repairability scores, in part due to the difficulty of obtaining genuine parts, and the difficulty undertaking each repair. This has given rise to the right to repair movement, aimed at giving users cheaper options for repairing their phones. Apple has lobbied against right to repair legistation. Multiple jurisdictions aim to introduce right to repair laws, including the EU, U.K., and U.S.


title: IPhone

text: In the past, Apple bricked iPhone 6 models after their home buttons were replaced, displaying an "Error 53" message; Apple called this a bug, and released an update to address the issue. On iPhones with a Touch ID sensor, the home button cannot be replaced by users or independent repair shops without losing Touch ID functionality, since Apple has not made their calibration tool public.


title: IPhone

text: In more recent models, starting with the iPhone XR, Apple displays warnings in the Settings app if the battery, display, or camera are replaced by a third party. Additionally, some features are disabled when a part labelled "non-genuine" is detected, like True Tone, or the battery health measurement. iFixit notes that a proprietary, cloud-linked System Configuration tool is required to "complete" a part repair, meaning that even replacing a genuine part with another genuine part will fail Apple's "genuine parts" check unless said tool is used.


title: IPhone

text: In 2022, Apple rolled out a self-service repair program, allowing any user to buy parts, rent repair tools from Apple, and obtain repair manuals. The program received a degree of praise by iFixit and repair advocates, who also critically noted that Apple maintains control over the parts supply.


title: IPhone

text: Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency (ATT) with iOS 14.5 in April 2021. ATT requires apps to ask for explicit permission before being allowed to track the user across other apps and websites. If the user refuses, the app cannot access Apple's Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), an identifier used to serve personalized ads. ATT does not prevent personalized ads that are based on the user's behavior within the app itself, The feature has been criticised by some as anti-competitive, including Facebook, whose shares fell by 26% after its rollout. Apple exempts their own apps from their anti-tracking measures, which has led to anti-trust investigations by the French and German governments.


title: IPhone

text: In July 2010, Apple claimed that it collected iPhone users' GPS coordinates and nearby Wi-Fi networks twice a day; a "Wall Street Journal" investigation found that Android sent this data "several times an hour".


title: IPhone

text: In September 2010, forensic expert Christopher Vance discovered a hidden unencrypted file named "consolidated.db" that contained a record of iPhone users' locations. The file was added with the June 2010 iOS 4 update, though previous versions of iOS stored similar information in a file called "h-cells.plist". On April 20, 2011, "The Guardian" publicized research by Alasdair Allen and Pete Warden, who found that anyone with physical access to an iPhone could obtain a detailed record of its owner's location and movements over the past year. Moreover, the file was automatically backed up by iTunes onto any computer the iPhone was synchronized with. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that users' locations were still stored when location services are disabled. The controversy led to U.S. congressional scrutiny and an FCC investigation, and was dubbed "Locationgate" by the media.


title: IPhone

text: Apple responded on April 27, 2011, claiming that the data was used to cache nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in order to improve location speed and accuracy. The company also claimed that locations being collected when location services were off, and being stored for more than a year, were both bugs. Apple issued an update for iOS (version 4.3.3, or 4.2.8 for the CDMA iPhone 4) which reduced the size of the cache, encrypted it, stopped it being backed up to iTunes, and erased it entirely whenever location services were turned off. Nevertheless, in July 2014, a report on state-owned China Central Television called iPhone tracking a "national security concern."


title: IPhone

text: Currently, iPhones contain a "Frequent Locations" database which records where users have been, along with exact times they arrived and left, raising concerns that the data could be used in court. This feature can be turned off.


title: IPhone

text: In August 2021, Apple announced plans to scan iCloud Photos for child abuse imagery (through an algorithm called "NeuralHash"), and filter explicit images sent and received by children using iPhones (dubbed "Conversation Safety"), to be rolled out later that year. More than 90 policy and human rights groups wrote an open letter to condemn both features. Apple's plan to implement NeuralHash on-device rather than in the cloud led the EFF and security experts to call it a "backdoor" that could later be expanded to detect other types of contents, and would decrease users' privacy. Apple claims the system was "misunderstood," but silently withdrew NeuralHash. Conversation Safety was later added to iOS 15.2.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone is regarded by security experts as more secure against common malware than Android. Less than 1% of mobile malware targets iOS.


title: IPhone

text: Prior to 2014, the iPhone stored all "messages, pictures and videos, contacts, audio recordings [...] and call history" in unencrypted form, enabling easy access by law enforcement. This changed with iOS 8, which adopted file-based encryption. Apple does not hold the decryption key, and cannot be compelled to turn over user data, even when presented with a government warrant. Companies like Grayshift and Cellebrite developed exploits that enable law enforcement to extract user data from iPhones without needing the user's passcode.


title: IPhone

text: In 2015 and 2016, a dispute unfolded between Apple and the FBI. The FBI had recovered the iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernardino attackers, and iCloud backups of that phone from a month and a half before the shooting. The U.S. government attempted to obtain a court order under the All Writs Act compelling Apple to produce a modified version of iOS that would allow investigators to brute force the device passcode. Tim Cook responded on the company's website, outlining a need for encryption, arguing that a backdoor would compromise the privacy of all iPhone users. The DOJ withdrew its request after the FBI bought an exploit to bypass the iPhone's passcode. As a countermeasure, Apple implemented USB Restricted Mode, which was subsequently exploited too.


title: IPhone

text: In 2016, researchers discovered the Pegasus suite of exploits targeting iOS and Android, which led to significant international media coverage. Some Pegasus exploits are zero-click, meaning that they can fully compromise the device with no user interaction, for example by sending a malformed iMessage to the user that would not even trigger a notification. Pegasus can collect most data, including chats, passwords, and photos, and can turn on the phone's microphone and camera remotely. Apple quickly issued an update fixing FORCEDENTRY and other known Pegasus exploits, though Pegasus continued to be used, relying on new exploits. Apple also sued NSO, the organization behind Pegasus, announced a new security bounty, and added an optional Lockdown Mode to iOS 16 that reduces the iPhone's attack surface.


title: IPhone

text: Prominent victims of Pegasus include Jamal Khashoggi, and numerous activists, businessmen and politicians. Pegasus has been widely used since 2011, and is still used by law enforcement and governments as of July 2022.


title: IPhone

text: The original iPhone has been described as "revolutionary" a "breakthrough handheld computer", and "the best phone that anybody has ever made." It is now Apple's bestselling product, has been credited with helping to make Apple one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies by 2011. Newer iterations have also received praise and awards.


title: IPhone

text: Before the iPhone, smartphones were mostly used for texting, calls, and email; more advanced functions were harder to use and inconvenient on a small screen. They were also hard to develop for, and lacked a thriving app ecosystem like the App Store (released in 2008). Many phones were heavily customized by mobile carriers, which led to feature fragmentation and prevented these phones from turning into thriving software platforms. In contrast, Apple's iPhone SDK provided a wide range of APIs, made mobile development far more accessible, and was instrumental in turning the iPhone into a "Swiss army knife" with a wide range of features and apps.


title: IPhone

text: Successive iPhone models have generated significant fan enthusiasm, with many customers queuing up in front of Apple Stores on launch day. As of 2021, the iPhone has higher brand loyalty than any other smartphone.


title: IPhone

text: The iPhone's success has led to the decline of incumbents Nokia, BlackBerry, and Motorola. RIM, Symbian and Microsoft all attempted to develop more modern operating systems to compete with the iPhone, like Maemo, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry 10; all were unsuccessful. Google successfully started over on their Android project, and designed it for mass adoption by carriers and phone hardware manufacturers. Today, the iOS and Android account for 99% of smartphones used worldwide.


title: IPhone

text: Steve Jobs's initial target was to reach 1% of phone market share in 2008. Apple sold 6.1 million units of the original iPhone between Q3 FY2007 and Q4 FY2008, and 11.3 million units of the iPhone 3G in Q4 FY2008 and Q1 FY2009. In 2008, the iPhone reached 1.1% of worldwide mobile phone market share, and 8.2% of the smartphone market.


title: IPhone

text: iPhone sales have grown continuously year-over-year since its introduction until Q2 FY2016. The iPhone briefly surpassed BlackBerry in Q4 FY2008, and permanently overtook it starting in Q3 FY2010. By 2011, Apple sold 100 million iPhones worldwide, and became the largest mobile phone vendor in the world by revenue, surpassing long-time leader Nokia. Q1 FY2012 marked Apple's best quarterly earnings in its history, with 53% of the company's revenues coming from iPhone sales. Phone sales are strongly seasonal, peaking in the holiday season (Apple's Q1). With the release of the iPhone 13 in Q1 FY2022, Apple temporarily topped Samsung, with 84.9 million units shipped compared to Samsung's 68.9 million. In most quarters, Apple is the second largest smartphone vendor by units.


title: IPhone

text: Today, Samsung and Apple dominate the smartphone market, with 21.8% and 15.6% worldwide market share respectively. Due to Apple's small lineup, Apple often dominates the list of bestselling smartphone models. Despite its lower market share, the iPhone's premium positioning has led it to capture nearly half of global smartphone revenue, and 80% of global smartphone profits, with Samsung taking the other 20%. Carriers compete with each other to subsidize iPhone upgrades, which is seen as a significant factor in iPhone sales, though this has reduced carrier profits. On July 27, 2016, Apple announced that it had sold their 1 billionth iPhone.


title: IPhone

text: Compared to other high-tech products, a greater proportion of iPhone users are female. The iPhone has been adopted by both consumers and business users. iPhone users are wealthier and spend more time on their phones than Android users on average. The iPhone is especially popular in the U.S., where it has a 50% market share, and is used by 87% of teenagers. Worldwide, the iPhone accounts for 78% of the high-end ($1,000+) smartphone market.


title: IPhone

text: Android overtook the iPhone's installed base in 2010, according to NPD Group. During Apple's earnings call on January 27, 2021, Tim Cook said that 1 billion iPhones were being actively used worldwide.


title: IPhone

text: While other manufacturers make separate entry-level phones, Apple's entry-level phones are the previous years' models, part of an effort to increase its market share in emerging markets without diluting its premium brand. It also considers emerging market tastes in its product designs; for example, it introduced a gold iPhone after finding that gold was seen as a popular sign of a luxury product among Chinese customers. In 2017, Apple started manufacturing previous years' iPhone models in India; in 2022, it began manufacturing the current iPhone 14 there too. Analysts have speculated that this was partly caused by Apple's desire to reduce its dependence on China, and to overcome Indian import duties.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the first United States Postmaster General.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his studies of electricity, and for charting and naming the current still known as the Gulf Stream. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among others. He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department, and the University of Pennsylvania.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, and as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, "In Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat." Franklin has been called "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the "Pennsylvania Gazette" at age 23. He became wealthy publishing this and "Poor Richard's Almanack", which he wrote under the pseudonym "Richard Saunders". After 1767, he was associated with the "Pennsylvania Chronicle", a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the policies of the British Parliament and the Crown.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: He pioneered and was the first president of the Academy and College of Philadelphia, which opened in 1751 and later became the University of Pennsylvania. He organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a national hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive FrancoAmerican relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing French aid.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: He was promoted to deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies on August 10, 1753, having been Philadelphia postmaster for many years, and this enabled him to set up the first national communications network. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the late 1750s, he began arguing against slavery, became an abolitionist, and promoted education and the integration of African Americans into U.S. society.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: His life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and his status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, have seen Franklin honored more than two centuries after his death on the $100 bill, warships, and the names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, and corporations, as well as numerous cultural references and with a portrait in the Oval Office. Over his lifetime, Franklin wrote or received more than 30,000 letters and other documents, known as "The Papers of Benjamin Franklin", published by the American Philosophical Society and Yale University.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Benjamin Franklin's father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, soaper, and candlemaker. Josiah Franklin was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, on December 23, 1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith and farmer, and his wife, Jane White. Benjamin's father and all four of his grandparents were born in England.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Josiah Franklin had a total of seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and emigrated with her to Boston in 1683; they had three children before emigration and four after. Following her death, Josiah married Abiah Folger on July 9, 1689, in the Old South Meeting House by Reverend Samuel Willard, and had ten children with her. Benjamin, their eighth child, was Josiah Franklin's fifteenth child overall, and his tenth and final son.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Benjamin Franklin's mother, Abiah, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts Bay Colony, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrell Folger, a former indentured servant. Mary Folger came from a Puritan family that was among the first Pilgrims to flee to Massachusetts for religious freedom, sailing for Boston in 1635 after King Charles I of England had begun persecuting Puritans. Her father Peter was "the sort of rebel destined to transform colonial America." As clerk of the court, he was jailed for disobeying the local magistrate in defense of middle-class shopkeepers and artisans in conflict with wealthy landowners.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin was born on Milk Street in Boston, Massachusetts on January 17, 1706, and baptized at Old South Meeting House. As a child growing up along the Charles River, Franklin recalled that he was "generally the leader among the boys."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin's father wanted him to attend school with the clergy but only had enough money to send him to school for two years. He attended Boston Latin School but did not graduate; he continued his education through voracious reading. Although "his parents talked of the church as a career" for Franklin, his schooling ended when he was ten. He worked for his father for a time, and at 12 he became an apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who taught him the printing trade. When Benjamin was 15, James founded "The New-England Courant", which was one of the first American newspapers.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: When denied the chance to write a letter to the paper for publication, Franklin adopted the pseudonym of "Silence Dogood", a middle-aged widow. Mrs. Dogood's letters were published and became a subject of conversation around town. Neither James nor the "Courant" readers were aware of the ruse, and James was unhappy with Benjamin when he discovered the popular correspondent was his younger brother. Franklin was an advocate of free speech from an early age. When his brother was jailed for three weeks in 1722 for publishing material unflattering to the governor, young Franklin took over the newspaper and had Mrs. Dogood (quoting "Cato's Letters") proclaim, "Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech." Franklin left his apprenticeship without his brother's permission, and in so doing became a fugitive.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: At age 17, Franklin ran away to Philadelphia, seeking a new start in a new city. When he first arrived, he worked in several printer shops around town, but he was not satisfied by the immediate prospects. After a few months, while working in a printing house, Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith convinced him to go to London, ostensibly to acquire the equipment necessary for establishing another newspaper in Philadelphia. Discovering that Keith's promises of backing a newspaper were empty, he worked as a typesetter in a printer's shop in what is now the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great in the Smithfield area of London. Following this, he returned to Philadelphia in 1726 with the help of Thomas Denham, a merchant who employed him as a clerk, shopkeeper, and bookkeeper in his business.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1727, at age 21, Franklin formed the Junto, a group of "like minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community." The Junto was a discussion group for issues of the day; it subsequently gave rise to many organizations in Philadelphia. The Junto was modeled after English coffeehouses that Franklin knew well and which had become the center of the spread of Enlightenment ideas in Britain.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Reading was a great pastime of the Junto, but books were rare and expensive. The members created a library initially assembled from their own books after Franklin wrote:


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: This did not suffice, however. Franklin conceived the idea of a subscription library, which would pool the funds of the members to buy books for all to read. This was the birth of the Library Company of Philadelphia: its charter was composed by him in 1731. In 1732, he hired the first American librarian, Louis Timothee. The Library Company is now a great scholarly and research library.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Upon Denham's death, Franklin returned to his former trade. In 1728, he set up a printing house in partnership with Hugh Meredith; the following year he became the publisher of a newspaper called "The Pennsylvania Gazette". The "Gazette" gave Franklin a forum for agitation about a variety of local reforms and initiatives through printed essays and observations. Over time, his commentary, and his adroit cultivation of a positive image as an industrious and intellectual young man, earned him a great deal of social respect. But even after he achieved fame as a scientist and statesman, he habitually signed his letters with the unpretentious 'B. Franklin, Printer.'


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1732, he published the first German-language newspaper in America – "Die Philadelphische Zeitung" – although it failed after only one year because four other newly founded German papers quickly dominated the newspaper market. Franklin also printed Moravian religious books in German. He often visited Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, staying at the Moravian Sun Inn. In a 1751 pamphlet on demographic growth and its implications for the Thirteen Colonies, he called the Pennsylvania Germans "Palatine Boors" who could never acquire the "Complexion" of Anglo-American settlers and referred to "Blacks and Tawneys" as weakening the social structure of the colonies. Although he apparently reconsidered shortly thereafter, and the phrases were omitted from all later printings of the pamphlet, his views may have played a role in his political defeat in 1764.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: According to Ralph Frasca, Franklin promoted the printing press as a device to instruct colonial Americans in moral virtue. Frasca argues he saw this as a service to God, because he understood moral virtue in terms of actions, thus, doing good provides a service to God. Despite his own moral lapses, Franklin saw himself as uniquely qualified to instruct Americans in morality. He tried to influence American moral life through the construction of a printing network based on a chain of partnerships from the Carolinas to New England. He thereby invented the first newspaper chain. It was more than a business venture, for like many publishers he believed that the press had a public-service duty.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: When he established himself in Philadelphia, shortly before 1730, the town boasted two "wretched little" news sheets, Andrew Bradford's "The American Weekly Mercury", and Samuel Keimer's "Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette". This instruction in all arts and sciences consisted of weekly extracts from "Chambers's Universal Dictionary". Franklin quickly did away with all of this when he took over the "Instructor" and made it "The Pennsylvania Gazette". The "Gazette" soon became his characteristic organ, which he freely used for satire, for the play of his wit, even for sheer excess of mischief or of fun. From the first, he had a way of adapting his models to his own uses. The series of essays called "The Busy-Body", which he wrote for Bradford's "American Mercury" in 1729, followed the general Addisonian form, already modified to suit homelier conditions. The thrifty Patience, in her busy little shop, complaining of the useless visitors who waste her valuable time, is related to the women who address Mr. Spectator. The Busy-Body himself is a true Censor Morum, as Isaac Bickerstaff had been in the "Tatler". And a number of the fictitious characters, Ridentius, Eugenius, Cato, and Cretico, represent traditional 18th-century classicism. Even this Franklin could use for contemporary satire, since Cretico, the "sowre Philosopher", is evidently a portrait of his rival, Samuel Keimer.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin had mixed success in his plan to establish an inter-colonial network of newspapers that would produce a profit for him and disseminate virtue. Over the years he sponsored two dozen printers in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New York, Connecticut and even the Caribbean. By 1753, 8 of the 15 English language newspapers in the colonies were published by him or his partners. He began in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1731. After his second editor died, the widow Elizabeth Timothy took over and made it a success. She was one of the colonial era's first woman printers. For three decades Franklin maintained a close business relationship with her and her son Peter Timothy, who took over the "South Carolina Gazette" in 1746. The "Gazette" was impartial in political debates, while creating the opportunity for public debate, which encouraged others to challenge authority. Timothy avoided blandness and crude bias and after 1765 increasingly took a patriotic stand in the growing crisis with Great Britain. However, Franklin's "Connecticut Gazette" (1755–68) proved unsuccessful. As the Revolution approached, political strife slowly tore his network apart.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1730 or 1731, Franklin was initiated into the local Masonic lodge. He became a grand master in 1734, indicating his rapid rise to prominence in Pennsylvania. The same year, he edited and published the first Masonic book in the Americas, a reprint of James Anderson's "Constitutions of the Free-Masons". He was the secretary of St. John's Lodge in Philadelphia from 1735 to 1738. Franklin remained a Freemason for the rest of his life.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: At age 17 in 1723, Franklin proposed to 15-year-old Deborah Read while a boarder in the Read home. At that time, Deborah's mother was wary of allowing her young daughter to marry Franklin, who was on his way to London at Governor Keith's request, and also because of his financial instability. Her own husband had recently died, and she declined Franklin's request to marry her daughter.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: While Franklin was in London, his trip was extended, and there were problems with the governor's promises of support. Perhaps because of the circumstances of this delay, Deborah married a man named John Rodgers. This proved to be a regrettable decision. Rodgers shortly avoided his debts and prosecution by fleeing to Barbados with her dowry, leaving her behind. Rodgers's fate was unknown, and because of bigamy laws, Deborah was not free to remarry.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin established a common-law marriage with Deborah on September 1, 1730. They took in his recently acknowledged illegitimate young son and raised him in their household. They had two children together. Their son, Francis Folger Franklin, was born in October 1732 and died of smallpox in 1736. Their daughter, Sarah "Sally" Franklin, was born in 1743 and eventually married Richard Bache.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Deborah's fear of the sea meant that she never accompanied Franklin on any of his extended trips to Europe; another possible reason why they spent much time apart is that he may have blamed her for possibly preventing their son Francis from being inoculated against the disease that subsequently killed him. Deborah wrote to him in November 1769, saying she was ill due to "dissatisfied distress" from his prolonged absence, but he did not return until his business was done. Deborah Read Franklin died of a stroke on December 14, 1774, while Franklin was on an extended mission to Great Britain; he returned in 1775.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1730, 24-year-old Franklin publicly acknowledged his illegitimate son William and raised him in his household. William was born on February 22, 1730, but his mother's identity is unknown. He was educated in Philadelphia and beginning at about age 30 studied law in London in the early 1760s. William himself fathered an illegitimate son, William Temple Franklin, born on the same day and month: February 22, 1760. The boy's mother was never identified, and he was placed in foster care. In 1762, the elder William Franklin married Elizabeth Downes, daughter of a planter from Barbados, in London. In 1763, he was appointed as the last royal governor of New Jersey.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: A Loyalist to the king, William Franklin saw his relations with father Benjamin eventually break down over their differences about the American Revolutionary War, as Benjamin Franklin could never accept William's position. Deposed in 1776 by the revolutionary government of New Jersey, William was placed under house arrest at his home in Perth Amboy for six months. After the Declaration of Independence, he was formally taken into custody by order of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, an entity which he refused to recognize, regarding it as an "illegal assembly". He was incarcerated in Connecticut for two years, in Wallingford and Middletown, and, after being caught surreptitiously engaging Americans into supporting the Loyalist cause, was held in solitary confinement at Litchfield for eight months. When finally released in a prisoner exchange in 1778, he moved to New York City, which was occupied by the British at the time.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: While in New York City, he became leader of the Board of Associated Loyalists, a quasi-military organization chartered by King George III and headquartered in New York City. They initiated guerrilla forays into New Jersey, southern Connecticut, and New York counties north of the city. When British troops evacuated from New York, William Franklin left with them and sailed to England. He settled in London, never to return to North America. In the preliminary peace talks in 1782 with Britain, "... Benjamin Franklin insisted that loyalists who had borne arms against the United States would be excluded from this plea (that they be given a general pardon). He was undoubtedly thinking of William Franklin."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1733, Franklin began to publish the noted "Poor Richard's Almanack" (with content both original and borrowed) under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, on which much of his popular reputation is based. He frequently wrote under pseudonyms. He had developed a distinct, signature style that was plain, pragmatic and had a sly, soft but self-deprecating tone with declarative sentences. Although it was no secret that he was the author, his Richard Saunders character repeatedly denied it. "Poor Richard's Proverbs", adages from this almanac, such as "A penny saved is twopence dear" (often misquoted as "A penny saved is a penny earned") and "Fish and visitors stink in three days", remain common quotations in the modern world. Wisdom in folk society meant the ability to provide an apt adage for any occasion, and his readers became well prepared. He sold about ten thousand copies per year—it became an institution. In 1741, Franklin began publishing "The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America." He used the heraldic badge of the Prince of Wales as the cover illustration.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1758, the year he ceased writing for the Almanack, he printed "Father Abraham's Sermon", also known as "The Way to Wealth". Franklin's autobiography, begun in 1771 but published after his death, has become one of the classics of the genre. He wrote a letter, "Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress", dated June 25, 1745, in which he gives advice to a young man about channeling sexual urges. Due to its licentious nature, it was not published in collections of his papers during the nineteenth century. Federal court decisions from the mid-to-late twentieth century cited the document as a reason for overturning obscenity laws, using it to make a case against censorship.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1736, Franklin created the Union Fire Company, one of the first volunteer firefighting companies in America. In the same year, he printed a new currency for New Jersey based on innovative anti-counterfeiting techniques he had devised. Throughout his career, he was an advocate for paper money, publishing "A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency" in 1729, and his printer printed money. He was influential in the more restrained and thus successful monetary experiments in the Middle Colonies, which stopped deflation without causing excessive inflation. In 1766, he made a case for paper money to the British House of Commons.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: As he matured, Franklin began to concern himself more with public affairs. In 1743, he first devised a scheme for the Academy, Charity School, and College of Philadelphia. However, the person he had in mind to run the academy, Rev. Richard Peters, refused and Franklin put his ideas away until 1749 when he printed his own pamphlet, "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania." He was appointed president of the Academy on November 13, 1749; the academy and the charity school opened in 1751.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1743, he founded the American Philosophical Society to help scientific men discuss their discoveries and theories. He began the electrical research that, along with other scientific inquiries, would occupy him for the rest of his life, in between bouts of politics and moneymaking.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: During King George's War, Franklin raised a militia called the Association for General Defense because the legislators of the city had decided to take no action to defend Philadelphia "either by erecting fortifications or building Ships of War". He raised money to create earthwork defenses and buy artillery. The largest of these was the "Association Battery" or "Grand Battery" of 50 guns.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1747, Franklin (already a very wealthy man) retired from printing and went into other businesses. He formed a partnership with his foreman, David Hall, which provided Franklin with half of the shop's profits for 18 years. This lucrative business arrangement provided leisure time for study, and in a few years he had made many new discoveries.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin became involved in Philadelphia politics and rapidly progressed. In October 1748, he was selected as a councilman; in June 1749, he became a justice of the peace for Philadelphia; and in 1751, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. On August 10, 1753, he was appointed deputy postmaster-general of British North America. His most notable service in domestic politics was his reform of the postal system, with mail sent out every week.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1751, Franklin and Thomas Bond obtained a charter from the Pennsylvania legislature to establish a hospital. Pennsylvania Hospital was the first hospital in the colonies. In 1752, Franklin organized the Philadelphia Contributionship, the Colonies' first homeowner's insurance company.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Between 1750 and 1753, the "educational triumvirate" of Franklin, Samuel Johnson of Stratford, Connecticut, and schoolteacher William Smith built on Franklin's initial scheme and created what Bishop James Madison, president of the College of William & Mary, called a "new-model" plan or style of American college. Franklin solicited, printed in 1752, and promoted an American textbook of moral philosophy by Samuel Johnson, titled "Elementa Philosophica", to be taught in the new colleges. In June 1753, Johnson, Franklin, and Smith met in Stratford. They decided the new-model college would focus on the professions, with classes taught in English instead of Latin, have subject matter experts as professors instead of one tutor leading a class for four years, and there would be no religious test for admission. Johnson went on to found King's College (now Columbia University) in New York City in 1754, while Franklin hired Smith as provost of the College of Philadelphia, which opened in 1755. At its first commencement, on May 17, 1757, seven men graduated; six with a Bachelor of Arts and one with a Master of Arts. It was later merged with the University of the State of Pennsylvania to become the University of Pennsylvania. The college was to become influential in guiding : in the Continental Congress, for example, over one-third of the college-affiliated men who contributed to the Declaration of Independence between September 4, 1774, and July 4, 1776, were affiliated with the college.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1754, he headed the Pennsylvania delegation to the Albany Congress. This meeting of several colonies had been requested by the Board of Trade in England to improve relations with the Indians and defense against the French. Franklin proposed a broad Plan of Union for the colonies. While the plan was not adopted, elements of it found their way into the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1753, both Harvard and Yale awarded him honorary master of arts degrees. In 1756, he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from the College of William & Mary. Later in 1756, Franklin organized the Pennsylvania Militia. He used Tun Tavern as a gathering place to recruit a regiment of soldiers to go into battle against the Native American uprisings that beset the American colonies.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Well known as a printer and publisher, Franklin was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737, holding the office until 1753, when he and publisher William Hunter were named deputy postmasters–general of British North America, the first to hold the office. (Joint appointments were standard at the time, for political reasons.) He was responsible for the British colonies from Pennsylvania north and east, as far as the island of Newfoundland. A post office for local and outgoing mail had been established in Halifax, Nova Scotia, by local stationer Benjamin Leigh, on April 23, 1754, but service was irregular. Franklin opened the first post office to offer regular, monthly mail in Halifax on December 9, 1755. Meantime, Hunter became postal administrator in Williamsburg, Virginia, and oversaw areas south of Annapolis, Maryland. Franklin reorganized the service's accounting system and improved speed of delivery between Philadelphia, New York and Boston. By 1761, efficiencies led to the first profits for the colonial post office.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: When the lands of New France were ceded to the British under the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the British province of Quebec was created among them, and Franklin saw mail service expanded between Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, and New York. For the greater part of his appointment, he lived in England (from 1757 to 1762, and again from 1764 to 1774)—about three-quarters of his term. Eventually, his sympathies for the rebel cause in the American Revolution led to his dismissal on January 31, 1774.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: On July 26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress established the United States Post Office and named Franklin as the first United States postmaster general. He had been a postmaster for decades and was a natural choice for the position. He had just returned from England and was appointed chairman of a Committee of Investigation to establish a postal system. The report of the committee, providing for the appointment of a postmaster general for the 13 American colonies, was considered by the Continental Congress on July 25 and 26. On July 26, 1775, Franklin was appointed postmaster general, the first appointed under the Continental Congress. His apprentice, William Goddard, felt that his ideas were mostly responsible for shaping the postal system and that the appointment should have gone to him, but he graciously conceded it to Franklin, 36 years his senior. Franklin, however, appointed Goddard as Surveyor of the Posts, issued him a signed pass, and directed him to investigate and inspect the various post offices and mail routes as he saw fit. The newly established postal system became the United States Post Office, a system that continues to operate today.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1757, he was sent to England by the Pennsylvania Assembly as a colonial agent to protest against the political influence of the Penn family, the proprietors of the colony. He remained there for five years, striving to end the proprietors' prerogative to overturn legislation from the elected Assembly and their exemption from paying taxes on their land. His lack of influential allies in Whitehall led to the failure of this mission.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: At this time, many members of the Pennsylvania Assembly were feuding with William Penn's heirs, who controlled the colony as proprietors. After his return to the colony, Franklin led the "anti-proprietary party" in the struggle against the Penn family and was elected Speaker of the Pennsylvania House in May 1764. His call for a change from proprietary to royal government was a rare political miscalculation, however: Pennsylvanians worried that such a move would endanger their political and religious freedoms. Because of these fears and because of political attacks on his character, Franklin lost his seat in the October 1764 Assembly elections. The anti-proprietary party dispatched him to England again to continue the struggle against the Penn family proprietorship. During this trip, events drastically changed the nature of his mission.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In London, Franklin opposed the 1765 Stamp Act. Unable to prevent its passage, he made another political miscalculation and recommended a friend to the post of stamp distributor for Pennsylvania. Pennsylvanians were outraged, believing that he had supported the measure all along, and threatened to destroy his home in Philadelphia. Franklin soon learned of the extent of colonial resistance to the Stamp Act, and he testified during the House of Commons proceedings that led to its repeal. With this, Franklin suddenly emerged as the leading spokesman for American interests in England. He wrote popular essays on behalf of the colonies. Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts also appointed him as their agent to the Crown.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: During his lengthy missions to London between 1757 and 1775, Franklin lodged in a house on Craven Street, just off the Strand in central London. During his stays there, he developed a close friendship with his landlady, Margaret Stevenson, and her circle of friends and relations, in particular, her daughter Mary, who was more often known as Polly. The house is now a museum known as the Benjamin Franklin House. Whilst in London, Franklin became involved in radical politics. He belonged to a gentleman's club (which he called "the honest Whigs"), which held stated meetings, and included members such as Richard Price, the minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church who ignited the Revolution controversy, and Andrew Kippis.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1756, Franklin had become a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (now the Royal Society of Arts), which had been founded in 1754. After his return to the United States in 1775, he became the Society's Corresponding Member, continuing a close connection. The Royal Society of Arts instituted a Benjamin Franklin Medal in 1956 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of his birth and the 200th anniversary of his membership of the RSA.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: The study of natural philosophy (referred today as science in general) drew him into overlapping circles of acquaintance. Franklin was, for example, a corresponding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. In 1759, the University of St Andrews awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his accomplishments. In October 1759, he was granted Freedom of the Borough of St Andrews. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Oxford University in 1762. Because of these honors, he was often addressed as " Franklin."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: While living in London in 1768, he developed a phonetic alphabet in "A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling". This reformed alphabet discarded six letters he regarded as redundant (c, j, q, w, x, and y), and substituted six new letters for sounds he felt lacked letters of their own. This alphabet never caught on, and he eventually lost interest.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin used London as a base to travel. In 1771, he made short journeys through different parts of England, staying with Joseph Priestley at Leeds, Thomas Percival at Manchester and Erasmus Darwin at Lichfield. In Scotland, he spent five days with Lord Kames near Stirling and stayed for three weeks with David Hume in Edinburgh. In 1759, he visited Edinburgh with his son and later reported that he considered his six weeks in Scotland "six weeks of the densest happiness I have met with in any part of my life".


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In Ireland, he stayed with Lord Hillsborough. Franklin noted of him that "all the plausible behaviour I have described is meant only, by patting and stroking the horse, to make him more patient, while the reins are drawn tighter, and the spurs set deeper into his sides." In Dublin, Franklin was invited to sit with the members of the Irish Parliament rather than in the gallery. He was the first American to receive this honor. While touring Ireland, he was deeply moved by the level of poverty he witnessed. The economy of the Kingdom of Ireland was affected by the same trade regulations and laws that governed the Thirteen Colonies. He feared that the American colonies could eventually come to the same level of poverty if the regulations and laws continued to apply to them.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin spent two months in German lands in 1766, but his connections to the country stretched across a lifetime. He declared a debt of gratitude to German scientist Otto von Guericke for his early studies of electricity. Franklin also co-authored the first treaty of friendship between Prussia and America in 1785. In September 1767, he visited Paris with his usual traveling partner, Sir John Pringle, 1st Baronet. News of his electrical discoveries was widespread in France. His reputation meant that he was introduced to many influential scientists and politicians, and also to King Louis XV.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: One line of argument in Parliament was that Americans should pay a share of the costs of the French and Indian War and therefore taxes should be levied on them. Franklin became the American spokesman in highly publicized testimony in Parliament in 1766. He stated that Americans already contributed heavily to the defense of the Empire. He said local governments had raised, outfitted and paid 25,000 soldiers to fight France—as many as Britain itself sent—and spent many millions from American treasuries doing so in the French and Indian War alone.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1772, Franklin obtained private letters of Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, governor and lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, proving that they had encouraged the Crown to crack down on Bostonians. Franklin sent them to America, where they escalated tensions. The letters were finally leaked to the public in the "Boston Gazette" in mid-June 1773, causing a political firestorm in Massachusetts and raising significant questions in England. The British began to regard him as the fomenter of serious trouble. Hopes for a peaceful solution ended as he was systematically ridiculed and humiliated by Solicitor-General Alexander Wedderburn, before the Privy Council on January 29, 1774. He returned to Philadelphia in March 1775, and abandoned his accommodationist stance.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1773, Franklin published two of his most celebrated pro-American satirical essays: , and "An Edict by the King of Prussia".


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin is known to have occasionally attended the Hellfire Club's meetings during 1758 as a non-member during his time in England. However, some authors and historians would argue he was in fact a British spy. As there are no records left (having been burned in 1774), many of these members are just assumed or linked by letters sent to each other. One early proponent that Franklin was a member of the Hellfire Club and a double agent is the historian Donald McCormick, who has a history of making controversial claims.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In 1763, soon after Franklin returned to Pennsylvania from England for the first time, the western frontier was engulfed in a bitter war known as Pontiac's Rebellion. The Paxton Boys, a group of settlers convinced that the Pennsylvania government was not doing enough to protect them from American Indian raids, murdered a group of peaceful Susquehannock Indians and marched on Philadelphia. Franklin helped to organize a local militia to defend the capital against the mob. He met with the Paxton leaders and persuaded them to disperse. Franklin wrote a scathing attack against the racial prejudice of the Paxton Boys. "If an "Indian" injures me", he asked, "does it follow that I may revenge that Injury on all "Indians"?"


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: He provided an early response to British surveillance through his own network of counter-surveillance and manipulation. "He waged a public relations campaign, secured secret aid, played a role in privateering expeditions, and churned out effective and inflammatory propaganda."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: By the time Franklin arrived in Philadelphia on May 5, 1775, after his second mission to Great Britain, the American Revolution had begun—with skirmishes breaking out between colonials and British at Lexington and Concord. The New England militia had forced the main British army to remain inside Boston. The Pennsylvania Assembly unanimously chose Franklin as their delegate to the Second Continental Congress. In June 1776, he was appointed a member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. Although he was temporarily disabled by gout and unable to attend most meetings of the committee, he made several "small but important" changes to the draft sent to him by Thomas Jefferson.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: At the signing, he is quoted as having replied to a comment by John Hancock that they must all hang together: "Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: On October 26, 1776, Franklin was dispatched to France as commissioner for the United States. He took with him as secretary his 16-year-old grandson, William Temple Franklin. They lived in a home in the Parisian suburb of Passy, donated by Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, who supported the United States. Franklin remained in France until 1785. He conducted the affairs of his country toward the French nation with great success, which included securing a critical military alliance in 1778 and signing the 1783 Treaty of Paris.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Among his associates in France was Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau—a French Revolutionary writer, orator and statesman who in 1791 was elected president of the National Assembly. In July 1784, Franklin met with Mirabeau and contributed anonymous materials that the Frenchman used in his first signed work: "Considerations sur l'ordre de Cincinnatus". The publication was critical of the Society of the Cincinnati, established in the United States. Franklin and Mirabeau thought of it as a "noble order", inconsistent with the egalitarian ideals of the new republic.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: During his stay in France, he was active as a Freemason, serving as venerable master of the lodge Les Neuf Sœurs from 1779 until 1781. In 1784, when Franz Mesmer began to publicize his theory of "animal magnetism" which was considered offensive by many, Louis XVI appointed a commission to investigate it. These included the chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly, and Franklin. In doing so, the committee concluded, through blind trials that mesmerism only seemed to work when the subjects expected it, which discredited mesmerism and became the first major demonstration of the placebo effect, which was described at that time as "imagination". In 1781, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin's advocacy for religious tolerance in France contributed to arguments made by French philosophers and politicians that resulted in Louis XVI's signing of the Edict of Versailles in November 1787. This edict effectively nullified the Edict of Fontainebleau, which had denied non-Catholics civil status and the right to openly practice their faith.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin also served as American minister to Sweden, although he never visited that country. He negotiated a treaty that was signed in April 1783. On August 27, 1783, in Paris, he witnessed the world's first hydrogen balloon flight. "Le Globe", created by professor Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert, was watched by a vast crowd as it rose from the Champ de Mars (now the site of the Eiffel Tower). Franklin became so enthusiastic that he subscribed financially to the next project to build a manned hydrogen balloon. On December 1, 1783, Franklin was seated in the special enclosure for honored guests when "La Charlière" took off from the Jardin des Tuileries, piloted by Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: When he returned home in 1785, Franklin occupied a position second only to that of George Washington as the champion of American independence. He returned from France with an unexplained shortage of 100,000 pounds in Congressional funds. In response to a question from a member of Congress about this, Franklin, quoting the Bible, quipped, "Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out his master's grain." The missing funds were never again mentioned in Congress.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Le Ray honored him with a commissioned portrait painted by Joseph Duplessis, which now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. After his return, Franklin became an abolitionist and freed his two slaves. He eventually became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Special balloting conducted October 18, 1785, unanimously elected him the sixth president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, replacing John Dickinson. The office was practically that of the governor. He held that office for slightly over three years, longer than any other, and served the constitutional limit of three full terms. Shortly after his initial election, he was re-elected to a full term on October 29, 1785, and again in the fall of 1786 and on October 31, 1787. In that capacity, he served as host to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: He also served as a delegate to the Convention. It was primarily an honorary position and he seldom engaged in debate.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin suffered from obesity throughout his middle-aged and later years, which resulted in multiple health problems, particularly gout, which worsened as he aged. In poor health during the signing of the US Constitution in 1787, he was rarely seen in public from then until his death.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Benjamin Franklin died from pleuritic attack at his home in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790. He was aged 84 at the time of his death. His last words were reportedly, "a dying man can do nothing easy", to his daughter after she suggested that he change position in bed and lie on his side so he could breathe more easily. Franklin's death is described in the book "The Life of Benjamin Franklin", quoting from the account of John Jones:


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Approximately 20,000 people attended his funeral. He was interred in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia. Upon learning of his death, the Constitutional Assembly in Revolutionary France entered into a state of mourning for a period of three days, and memorial services were conducted in honor of Franklin throughout the country. In 1728, aged 22, Franklin wrote what he hoped would be his own epitaph:


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin's actual grave, however, as he specified in his final will, simply reads "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin".


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin was a prodigious inventor. Among his many creations were the lightning rod, Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and the flexible urinary catheter. He never patented his inventions; in his autobiography he wrote, "... as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin started exploring the phenomenon of electricity in 1746 when he saw some of Archibald Spencer's lectures using static electricity for illustrations. He proposed that "vitreous" and "resinous" electricity were not different types of "electrical fluid" (as electricity was called then), but the same "fluid" under different pressures. (The same proposal was made independently that same year by William Watson.) He was the first to label them as positive and negative respectively, and he was the first to discover the principle of conservation of charge. In 1748, he constructed a multiple plate capacitor, that he called an "electrical battery" (not a true battery like Volta's pile) by placing eleven panes of glass sandwiched between lead plates, suspended with silk cords and connected by wires.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In pursuit of more pragmatic uses for electricity, remarking in spring 1749 that he felt "chagrin'd a little" that his experiments had heretofore resulted in "Nothing in this Way of Use to Mankind", he planned a practical demonstration. He proposed a dinner party where a turkey was to be killed via electric shock and roasted on an electrical spit. After having prepared several turkeys this way, he noted that "the birds kill'd in this manner eat uncommonly tender." Franklin recounted that in the process of one of these experiments, he was shocked by a pair of Leyden jars, resulting in numbness in his arms that persisted for one evening, noting "I am Ashamed to have been Guilty of so Notorious a Blunder."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin briefly investigated electrotherapy, including the use of the electric bath. This work led to the field becoming widely known. In recognition of his work with electricity, he received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1753, and in 1756, he became one of the few 18th-century Americans elected a fellow of the Society. The CGS unit of electric charge has been named after him: one "franklin" (Fr) is equal to one statcoulomb.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin advised Harvard University in its acquisition of new electrical laboratory apparatus after the complete loss of its original collection, in a fire that destroyed the original Harvard Hall in 1764. The collection he assembled later became part of the Harvard Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, now on public display in its Science Center.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin published a proposal for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a storm. On May 10, 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment using a iron rod instead of a kite, and he extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. On June 15, 1752, Franklin may possibly have conducted his well-known kite experiment in Philadelphia, successfully extracting sparks from a cloud. He described the experiment in his newspaper, "The Pennsylvania Gazette", on October 19, 1752, without mentioning that he himself had performed it. This account was read to the Royal Society on December 21 and printed as such in the "Philosophical Transactions". Joseph Priestley published an account with additional details in his 1767 "History and Present Status of Electricity". Franklin was careful to stand on an insulator, keeping dry under a roof to avoid the danger of electric shock. Others, such as Georg Wilhelm Richmann in Russia, were indeed electrocuted in performing lightning experiments during the months immediately following his experiment.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In his writings, Franklin indicates that he was aware of the dangers and offered alternative ways to demonstrate that lightning was electrical, as shown by his use of the concept of electrical ground. He did not perform this experiment in the way that is often pictured in popular literature, flying the kite and waiting to be struck by lightning, as it would have been dangerous. Instead he used the kite to collect some electric charge from a storm cloud, showing that lightning was electrical. On October 19, 1752, in a letter to England with directions for repeating the experiment, he wrote:


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin's electrical experiments led to his invention of the lightning rod. He said that conductors with a sharp rather than a smooth point could discharge silently and at a far greater distance. He surmised that this could help protect buildings from lightning by attaching "upright Rods of Iron, made sharp as a Needle and gilt to prevent Rusting, and from the Foot of those Rods a Wire down the outside of the Building into the Ground; ... Would not these pointed Rods probably draw the Electrical Fire silently out of a Cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible Mischief!" Following a series of experiments on Franklin's own house, lightning rods were installed on the Academy of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) and the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in 1752.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin had a major influence on the emerging science of demography or population studies. In the 1730s and 1740s, he began taking notes on population growth, finding that the American population had the fastest growth rate on Earth. Emphasizing that population growth depended on food supplies, he emphasized the abundance of food and available farmland in America. He calculated that America's population was doubling every 20 years and would surpass that of England in a century. In 1751, he drafted "Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc." Four years later, it was anonymously printed in Boston and was quickly reproduced in Britain, where it influenced the economist Adam Smith and later the demographer Thomas Malthus, who credited Franklin for discovering a rule of population growth. Franklin's predictions how British mercantilism was unsustainable alarmed British leaders who did not want to be surpassed by the colonies, so they became more willing to impose restrictions on the colonial economy.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Kammen (1990) and Drake (2011) say Franklin's "Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind" (1755) stands alongside Ezra Stiles' "Discourse on Christian Union" (1760) as the leading works of 18th-century Anglo-American demography; Drake credits Franklin's "wide readership and prophetic insight". Franklin was also a pioneer in the study of slave demography, as shown in his 1755 essay. In his capacity as a farmer, he wrote at least one critique about the negative consequences of price controls, trade restrictions, and subsidy of the poor. This is succinctly preserved in his letter to the "London Chronicle" published November 29, 1766, titled "On the Price of Corn, and Management of the poor".


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: As deputy postmaster, Franklin became interested in North Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns. While in England in 1768, he heard a complaint from the Colonial Board of Customs: Why did it take British packet ships carrying mail several weeks longer to reach New York than it took an average merchant ship to reach Newport, Rhode Island? The merchantmen had a longer and more complex voyage because they left from London, while the packets left from Falmouth in Cornwall. Franklin put the question to his cousin Timothy Folger, a Nantucket whaler captain, who told him that merchant ships routinely avoided a strong eastbound mid-ocean current. The mail packet captains sailed dead into it, thus fighting an adverse current of . Franklin worked with Folger and other experienced ship captains, learning enough to chart the current and name it the Gulf Stream, by which it is still known today.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin published his Gulf Stream chart in 1770 in England, where it was ignored. Subsequent versions were printed in France in 1778 and the U.S. in 1786. The British original edition of the chart had been so thoroughly ignored that everyone assumed it was lost forever until Phil Richardson, a Woods Hole oceanographer and Gulf Stream expert, discovered it in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris in 1980. This find received front-page coverage in "The New York Times". It took many years for British sea captains to adopt Franklin's advice on navigating the current; once they did, they were able to trim two weeks from their sailing time. In 1853, the oceanographer and cartographer Matthew Fontaine Maury noted that while Franklin charted and codified the Gulf Stream, he did not discover it:


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: An aging Franklin accumulated all his oceanographic findings in "Maritime Observations", published by the Philosophical Society's "transactions" in 1786. It contained ideas for sea anchors, catamaran hulls, watertight compartments, shipboard lightning rods and a soup bowl designed to stay stable in stormy weather.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin was, along with his contemporary Leonhard Euler, the only major scientist who supported Christiaan Huygens's wave theory of light, which was basically ignored by the rest of the scientific community. In the 18th century, Isaac Newton's corpuscular theory was held to be true; it took Thomas Young's well-known slit experiment in 1803 to persuade most scientists to believe Huygens's theory.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: On October 21, 1743, according to the popular myth, a storm moving from the southwest denied Franklin the opportunity of witnessing a lunar eclipse. He was said to have noted that the prevailing winds were actually from the northeast, contrary to what he had expected. In correspondence with his brother, he learned that the same storm had not reached Boston until after the eclipse, despite the fact that Boston is to the northeast of Philadelphia. He deduced that storms do not always travel in the direction of the prevailing wind, a concept that greatly influenced meteorology. After the Icelandic volcanic eruption of Laki in 1783, and the subsequent harsh European winter of 1784, Franklin made observations on the causal nature of these two seemingly separate events. He wrote about them in a lecture series.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Though Franklin is famously associated with kites from his lightning experiments, he has also been noted by many for using kites to pull humans and ships across waterways. George Pocock in the book "A TREATISE on The Aeropleustic Art, or Navigation in the Air, by means of Kites, or Buoyant Sails" noted being inspired by Benjamin Franklin's traction of his body by kite power across a waterway.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin noted a principle of refrigeration by observing that on a very hot day, he stayed cooler in a wet shirt in a breeze than he did in a dry one. To understand this phenomenon more clearly, he conducted experiments. In 1758 on a warm day in Cambridge, England, he and fellow scientist John Hadley experimented by continually wetting the ball of a mercury thermometer with ether and using bellows to evaporate the ether. With each subsequent evaporation, the thermometer read a lower temperature, eventually reaching . Another thermometer showed that the room temperature was constant at . In his letter "Cooling by Evaporation", Franklin noted that, "One may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: According to Michael Faraday, Franklin's experiments on the non-conduction of ice are worth mentioning, although the law of the general effect of liquefaction on electrolytes is not attributed to Franklin. However, as reported in 1836 by Franklin's great-grandson Prof. Alexander Dallas Bache of the University of Pennsylvania, the law of the effect of heat on the conduction of bodies otherwise non-conductors, for example, glass, could be attributed to Franklin. Franklin wrote, "... A certain quantity of heat will make some bodies good conductors, that will not otherwise conduct ..." and again, "... And water, though naturally a good conductor, will not conduct well when frozen into ice."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: While traveling on a ship, Franklin had observed that the wake of a ship was diminished when the cooks scuttled their greasy water. He studied the effects on a large pond in Clapham Common, London. "I fetched out a cruet of oil and dropt a little of it on the water ... though not more than a teaspoon full, produced an instant calm over a space of several yards square." He later used the trick to "calm the waters" by carrying "a little oil in the hollow joint of my cane".


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: In a 1772 letter to Joseph Priestley, Franklin laid out the earliest known description of the Pro & Con list, a common decision-making technique, now sometimes called a decisional balance sheet:


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Like the other advocates of republicanism, Franklin emphasized that the new republic could survive only if the people were virtuous. All his life, he explored the role of civic and personal virtue, as expressed in "Poor Richard's" aphorisms. He felt that organized religion was necessary to keep men good to their fellow men, but rarely attended religious services himself. When he met Voltaire in Paris and asked his fellow member of the Enlightenment vanguard to bless his grandson, Voltaire said in English, "God and Liberty", and added, "this is the only appropriate benediction for the grandson of Monsieur Franklin."


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin's parents were both pious Puritans. The family attended the Old South Church, the most liberal Puritan congregation in Boston, where Benjamin Franklin was baptized in 1706. Franklin's father, a poor chandler, owned a copy of a book, "Bonifacius: Essays to Do Good", by the Puritan preacher and family friend Cotton Mather, which Franklin often cited as a key influence on his life. "If I have been", Franklin wrote to Cotton Mather's son seventy years later, "a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book." His first pen name, Silence Dogood, paid homage both to the book and to a widely known sermon by Mather. The book preached the importance of forming voluntary associations to benefit society. Franklin learned about forming do-good associations from Mather, but his organizational skills made him the most influential force in making voluntarism an enduring part of the American ethos.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin formulated a presentation of his beliefs and published it in 1728. It did not mention many of the Puritan ideas regarding salvation, the divinity of Jesus, or indeed much religious dogma. He classified himself as a deist in his 1771 autobiography, although he still considered himself a Christian. He retained a strong faith in a God as the wellspring of morality and goodness in man, and as a Providential actor in history responsible for American independence.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: At a critical impasse during the Constitutional Convention in June 1787, he attempted to introduce the practice of daily common prayer with these words:


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin was an enthusiastic supporter of the evangelical minister George Whitefield during the First Great Awakening. He did not himself subscribe to Whitefield's theology, but he admired Whitefield for exhorting people to worship God through good works. He published all of Whitefield's sermons and journals, thereby earning a lot of money and boosting the Great Awakening.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin retained a lifelong commitment to the Puritan virtues and political values he had grown up with, and through his civic work and publishing, he succeeded in passing these values into the American culture permanently. He had a "passion for virtue". These Puritan values included his devotion to egalitarianism, education, industry, thrift, honesty, temperance, charity and community spirit.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: The classical authors read in the Enlightenment period taught an abstract ideal of republican government based on hierarchical social orders of king, aristocracy and commoners. It was widely believed that English liberties relied on their balance of power, but also hierarchal deference to the privileged class. "Puritanism ... and the epidemic evangelism of the mid-eighteenth century, had created challenges to the traditional notions of social stratification" by preaching that the Bible taught all men are equal, that the true value of a man lies in his moral behavior, not his class, and that all men can be saved. Franklin, steeped in Puritanism and an enthusiastic supporter of the evangelical movement, rejected the salvation dogma but embraced the radical notion of egalitarian democracy.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Franklin's commitment to teach these values was itself something he gained from his Puritan upbringing, with its stress on "inculcating virtue and character in themselves and their communities." These Puritan values and the desire to pass them on, were one of his quintessentially American characteristics and helped shape the character of the nation. Max Weber considered Franklin's ethical writings a culmination of the Protestant ethic, which ethic created the social conditions necessary for the birth of capitalism.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: One of his notable characteristics was his respect, tolerance and promotion of all churches. Referring to his experience in Philadelphia, he wrote in his autobiography, "new Places of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary Contribution, my Mite for such purpose, whatever might be the Sect, was never refused." "He helped create a new type of nation that would draw strength from its religious pluralism." The evangelical revivalists who were active mid-century, such as Whitefield, were the greatest advocates of religious freedom, "claiming liberty of conscience to be an 'inalienable right of every rational creature.'" Whitefield's supporters in Philadelphia, including Franklin, erected "a large, new hall, that ... could provide a pulpit to anyone of any belief." Franklin's rejection of dogma and doctrine and his stress on the God of ethics and morality and civic virtue made him the "prophet of tolerance". He composed "A Parable Against Persecution", an apocryphal 51st chapter of Genesis in which God teaches Abraham the duty of tolerance. While he was living in London in 1774, he was present at the birth of British Unitarianism, attending the inaugural session of the Essex Street Chapel, at which Theophilus Lindsey drew together the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in England; this was somewhat politically risky and pushed religious tolerance to new boundaries, as a denial of the doctrine of the Trinity was illegal until the 1813 Act.


title: Benjamin Franklin

text: Although his parents had intended for him a career in the church, Franklin as a young man adopted the Enlightenment religious belief in deism, that God's truths can be found entirely through nature and reason, declaring, "I soon became a thorough Deist." He rejected Christian dogma in a 1725 pamphlet "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain", which he later saw as an embarrassment, while simultaneously asserting that God is "all wise, all good, all powerful." He defended his rejection of religious dogma with these words: "I think opinions should be judged by their influences and effects; and if a man holds none that tend to make him less virtuous or more vicious, it may be concluded that he holds none that are dangerous, which I hope is the case with me." After the disillusioning experience of seeing the decay in his own moral standards, and those of two friends in London whom he had converted to deism, Franklin turned back to a belief in the importance of organized religion, on the pragmatic grounds that without God and organized churches, man will not be good. Moreover, because of his proposal that prayers be said in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, many have contended that in his later life he became a pious Christian.