Benjamin Franklin

Franklin introduced the terms positive and negative for electrical charge and helped establish much of the vocabulary used in early electrical science.

He had only two years of formal schooling and was largely self-taught, yet received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and the University of St Andrews.

At 17, he arrived in Philadelphia with very little money. He later recalled buying three large bread rolls and walking along the street with one under each arm while eating the third.

He invented bifocals because he was tired of switching between reading glasses and distance glasses.

Franklin chose not to patent his inventions, writing that people who benefit from the inventions of others should be willing to share their own inventions freely.

Franklin was the only person to sign four key documents in the creation of the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris and the Constitution.

He helped establish the Library Company of Philadelphia, organised Philadelphia's first volunteer fire company and played a leading role in creating the educational institution that later became the University of Pennsylvania.

His glass armonica so impressed Mozart that the composer wrote a quintet and a solo piece specifically for the instrument.

Franklin worked with Nantucket captain Timothy Folger to produce an influential early chart of the Gulf Stream and later made further observations of Atlantic currents.

His face has been on the $100 bill since 1914 — a fitting tribute for a man who started life with almost nothing.