Is that a Turkey?! How Thanksgiving Dinner Nearly Ended Up on the Great Seal of the United States of America
“The bald eagle is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. He is too lazy to fish for himself.” Those are the words of legendary, larger-than-life, founding father Benjamin Franklin. Ben Franklin, both as a scientist and as a statesman, was the most famous and well-respected American in the entire world at the end of the 18th century during the early days of our American republic. He, perhaps more than anyone else, is responsible for framing and shaping the laws and ideas that are articulated in the United States Constitution which have endured for nearly two-hundred and fifty years. He was America’s first diplomat and was instrumental in winning American independence from Great Britain by negotiating international treaties that brought France and Holland into the American Revolution on our side and thereby tipped the balance of power against the British. Franklin invented bifocals and experimented with e...