Franklin was born in Boston. After two years of school he stayed home as an apprentice in his father's candle-making shop. Two years after starting to work at his father's shop, he went to work at his brother James' printing shop. While working there, Franklin secretly wrote articles for the newspaper and labelled them as being by "Mrs. Silence Dogood". He quarrelled with his brother and at age 17 ran away to Philadelphia, then to London and then back to Philadelphia.
Franklin loved books and reading. Franklin, at the age of 21, established the colonies' first circulation library for all interested citizens. He became rich and famous as a printer, publisher and writer. Later, he sold his businesses and became busy with science and politics.
Benjamin Franklin was very important in Pennsylvanian and early American politics. He was a leader in the city of Philadelphia, where he did many important things. He was the President of the Academy and College of Philadelphia. Later he became a councilman, a Justice of the Peace, later a representative of the city. He also started one of the first public libraries in Philadelphia. He was for many years the postmaster of Philadelphia, and in 1753 became Postmaster General of the Thirteen Colonies. In 1757 he went to live in London as agent for Pennsylvania and later for other colonies.
He was in the Continental Congress, which led the country during the Revolutionary War, and he helped write the United States Declaration of Independence. He controlled the postal service as Postmaster General. As ambassador to France he helped persuade the French to join the war against Great Britain. He helped negotiate the peace, too. Later, he was part of the group that made the Constitution of the United States.
Franklin called himself a printer, but is also known for his writings. Among some of the more well known are Poor Richard's Almanack, and the Pennsylvanian.
Franklin was a scientist who studied experiments in an effort to improve or correct them. One of his greatest contributions was in the theory of electricity.
Most people see Franklin as one of history's greatest inventors. For example, he invented the lightning rod and bifocals, the Franklin stove, and the glass harmonica.
Franklin died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from pleurisy, April 17, 1790 aged 84.
Benjamin Franklin owned slaves and printed ads to help slavers find runaway slaves in his newspaper. Eventually, he changed his mind and became an abolitionist. But he still made a lot of money from slavery.
The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (where he lived) marked his three hundredth birthday in 2006. Many streets and a few towns are named for him.
A picture of Franklin has been on the United States' hundred-dollar bill since 1928. He was also on the fifty-cent coin for 15 years.
Noble Eightfold Path
In Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path (Pali: "ariya atthangika magga") is the path to the end of suffering. It is the fourth part of the Four Noble Truths. It can be summed up in three categories: wisdom ("pañña"), virtue ("sila"), and concentration ("samadhi"). It asks for the Right view and the right intention, as well as other things. It also asks for the right speech.
Here is a description of the path:
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind is a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell. It tells the story of a family woman in the American South (and in the plantation of Tara) during the Civil War. She falls in love with a city gentleman. It is one of the most famous books of its time, and was made into a movie of the same name.
The title takes the name from the line of Ernest Dowson's poem: "I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind." (The line appeared in the book). Critics and historians have disagreed with its views of Confederacy and the American South before the Civil War. But it is true to the events of the time, and also has a well-written account of the fall of Atlanta in 1864. The book won the Pulitzer Prize on May 3, 1937. In 1991, Alexander Ripley wrote its official sequel, "Scarlett". Three years later, it was made as a television miniseries. In 2001, the copyright holders of the original book tried to stop sales of Alice Randall's "The Wind Done Gone". (The book retold Mitchell's story from a slave's point of view.) The resulting lawsuit allowed the book to be published; it was seen, based on rules in the First Amendment, as a parody.
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies is a list of the top one hundred movies in American cinema. It was made by the American Film Institute in 1998. The television station CBS aired the list's special.
Movies that were on the list:
Flag of Greenland
The Flag of Greenland was designed by Greenlander Thue Christiansen. It features two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red with a large disk at the center. The top half of the disk is red, the bottom half is white.
Its local name in the Greenlandic language is "Erfalasorput", which means "our flag", but Aappalaartoq (meaning "the red") is also used for both the Greenlandic flag and the Dannebrog. Today Greenlanders display both the Erfalasorput and the Dannebrog, often side-by-side.
Greenland first thought of the idea of a flag of its own in 1973, when five Greenlanders proposed a green, white and blue flag. The following year, a newspaper printed eleven design proposals (all but one of which was a Nordic Cross), and polled the people to determine the most popular. The Dannebrog was better liked than any. Little came of this effort.
In 1978, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, making it an equal member of the Danish Kingdom. The home rule government asked for flag proposals, receiving 555. 293 were made by Greenlanders.
Out of all the designs, the current red-and-white design by Christiansen narrowly won over a green-and-white Nordic cross by a vote of fourteen to eleven. Christiansen's red-and-white flag was officially adopted on June 21, 1985.
To honor the tenth anniversary of the Erfalasorput, the Greenland Post Office issued commemorative stamps and a leaflet by its creator. He described the white stripe as representing the glaciers and ice cap; the red stripe, the ocean; the red semicircle, the fjords; and the white semicircle, the icebergs and pack ice. The design is also reminiscent of the setting sun half-submerged below the horizon and reflected on the sea.
Greenlandic language
Greenlandic can be divided into three dialects:
Kalaallisut or, in English, Greenlandic, is the standard dialect and official language of Greenland. This standard national language is now taught to all Greenlanders in school, regardless of their native dialect. It is related to Inuktitut. It reflects almost exclusively the language of western Greenland and has borrowed a great deal of vocabulary from Danish, while Canadian and Alaskan Inuit languages have tended to take words from English or sometimes French and Russian. It is written using the Roman alphabet. The dialect of the Upernavik area in northwest Greenland is somewhat different in sound from the standard dialect.
Tunumiit oraasiat, (or Tunumiisut in Kalaallisut, often East Greenlandic in other languages), is the dialect of eastern Greenland. It differs sharply from other Inuit language variants and has roughly 3,000 speakers.
Avanersuaq is the dialect of the area around Qaanaaq in northern Greenland. It is sometimes called the Thule dialect or North Greenlandic. This area is the northernmost settlement area of the Inuit and has a relatively small number of speakers. It is reputed to be fairly close to the North Baffin dialect, since a group of Inuit from Baffin Island settled in the area during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It counts under 1,000 speakers.
Earthworm
An earthworm is an invertebrate animal with a long, stretchy body and no legs. It is a type of annelid.