Testaments to the Boom Times to Come

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[dragonsareawesome123]

Y’all, this song is amazing! Go listen to it!

[wizzard890]

Electricity!
Yeah, you can all thank me
Took some lightning, a kite, and a fat brass key
And they’re putting up streetlights in Gay Paris
You’re welcome from our young nation

I’m the only American the French wanna see
They call me a genius, I can’t disagree
They have guns, they have funds
They can set us free
Invest in my reputation

And do you know who the fuck I am?
Yeah, do you know who the fuck I am?
Do you know who the fuck I am?
I am Poor-Richard’s-Almanack-writing Benjamin Fuckin’ Franklin!

how is this such a good hamilton song and also somehow such a good decemberists song

[Testaments to the Boom Times to Come]

[smithsonianlibraries]

It’s all about the Benjamins! We raise a glass (beer, of course) to celebrate his birth, January 17, 1706, 308 years ago today.

Bens 1, 2, 3, 4 all from our Galaxy of Images, while the last is a botanical plate of the Franklin tree’s bloom. Native to Georgia, the eponymous tree has been extinct in the wild since the early 1800s but is still cultivated as an ornamental. Get an overview on Wikipedia or see literature mentioning it at the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s site.

Franklin’s Experiments and observations on electricity can be found in our Digital Library, along with his autobiography.