Benjamin Franklin

Airs: Sunday, March 23, 6 pm to 11 pm
Educator Rights: 1 Year
Web: http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin

Radical. Brilliant. Diplomatic. Scientific. Witty. Driven. Benjamin Franklin was an American genius who revolutionized his times with the scope of his intellect, the charm of his wit and the passion of his belief that ordinary men, and women, could shape their world.

Born in obscurity, he became the most famous American of his day, helping to give birth to the modern age and to a new nation. Benjamin Franklin brings the man and his times to life in a documentary biography that's as lively and groundbreaking as its subject.

Tony Award-winning Broadway actor Richard Easton portrays Franklin, speaking directly and intimately to the viewer in Franklin's own words.

Benjamin Franklin follows Franklin's career from his humble origins in Boston to prosperity as a self-made businessman, publisher and civic citizen in Philadelphia, to international superstardom as a scientist and revolutionary, a founding father and America's first diplomat to France.