Questions

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. How did Benjamin Franklin become famous? What awards did Franklin win in Europe? Why was Franklin so popular in France? List some of Franklins contributions to agriculture. Why did Franklin believe that the silk industry would be perfect for America? How did Franklin help promote the sharing of agriculture knowledge and products between countries? 7. Describe the earliest postal system in the Americas. 8. What were Franklins contributions to the postal service? (list and describe) 9. Why were the French eager to ally with the colonists during the Revolutionary War? 10. How did Frances involvement in the American Revolution page the way for the French Revolution? 11. What was the Committee of Secret Correspondence? What modern government agency is most like the Committee of Secret Correspondence? 12. List and describe some of the methods used for spying during the American Revolution.

Answers
1. Benjamin Franklin became famous because of his scientific discoveries in electricity. 2. Franklin was awarded the Copley Gold Medal award from England and several honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and St. Andrews. Back then the Copley Gold Medal Award was basically todays Nobel Peace Prize. 3. Franklin was so popular in France because everyone around the world knew of the scientific breakthroughs he made. He was also famous in France because the French were interested by the Americans. 4. Franklin introduced new plants to Europe and America and wrote a couple of books on agriculture and botany and suggested putting in crop insurance and educated people in the use of gypsum as a fertilizer. 5. Franklin believed that the silk industry was perfect for America, because silk was a good quality material and he believed it would benefit Americans because the silk worm ate the mulberry trees and the mulberry trees did not take up much land to grow and did not need good land to grow on and people could still grow things around the mulberry trees. 6. Franklin helped promote the sharing of agriculture knowledge and products between countries by helping to introduce new products and agricultural knowledge to colonies throughout Europe. 7. The earliest postal system in the America was unreliable because the carriers took different routes and you could not tell if your letter got to its destination so people usually hand carried their letters. 8. Franklin traveled to different post offices and listed the improvements each one needed and made better maps to get to each post master faster by listing milestones and by making more direct routes and Franklin increased mail travel by having night travel as well. 9. The French were eager to ally with the colonists because England was their enemy, and it was a way at getting back at the British. 10. Frances involvement with the American Revolution paged the way for the French revolution because the financial support for the American revolution bankrupted France.

11. The Committee of Secret Correspondence was basically a group that gathered information around the world that would help the American cause and create alliances with foreign countries. The CIA is most like the Committee of Secret Correspondence. 12. Spying during the American revolution consisted of several different methods using invisible ink which was basically a secret note written in between the lines of a letter using a chemical and the reader would be able to read the message by putting it under heat or giving it a chemical bath which would reveal the message. Codes were also used during the American revolution. Codes consisted of letters or numbers that meant other words. To figure out the code you would need a key or a code book. Letters were also hidden in empty places in a park where a person would later pick it up, such as an empty hole in a tree. Also messages were stored in the hollow of a quill, inside bullets or inside hollow silver spheres that were easily concealed and could be swallowed if the messenger was caught.