In 1723, a teenage Benjamin Franklin arrived in Philadelphia ready to reinvent himself. He was a penniless apprentice printer with a hunger for knowledge and a burning ambition. Over the next 50 years, he would fashion himself into the most celebrated American of his time. Franklin became a printer, a politician, a postmaster and an inventor. He tied a key to a kite string and discovered the secret of lightning. And in the 1760s, he became America’s leading diplomat in Britain, just as tensions between the colonies and their mother country reached a breaking point. Pre-order your copy of the new American History Tellers book, The Hidden History of the White House, for behind-the-scenes stories of some of the most dramatic events in American history—set right inside the house where it happened. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.