The Society for Useful Knowledge by Jonathan Lyons

Significant Events
    These are some of the significant dates associated with the story of
The Society for Useful Knowledge
. More details are covered in the narrative that follows.
1620
The
Mayflower
, carrying William Bradford and other English and Dutch religious dissidents, arrives at Cape Cod.
1650
Restoration of the British monarchy under Charles II, ending republican rule.
1660
Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge is founded.
1681
King grants William Penn a charter for the American province of Pennsylvania.
1683
Englishman Josiah Franklin, father of Benjamin, emigrates to Boston.
1699
John Bartram, American botanist, is born in Darby, Pennsylvania.
1706
Benjamin Franklin is born in Boston.
1723
Franklin breaks his legal contract as an apprentice with his brother James, a Boston printer, and flees to Philadelphia.
1724
Franklin arrives in London on Christmas Eve in fruitless pursuit of money and equipment to go into the printing business back in Philadelphia. This is the first of four stints abroad, accounting for much of his adult life.
1726
Franklin returns to Philadelphia aboard the
Berkshire
to begin a short-lived career in business.
1727
Franklin and other like-minded craftsmen and mechanics form the Leather Apron Club, more commonly known as the Junto.
1731
Franklin and friends form the Library Company of Philadelphia.
1732
David Rittenhouse, mechanical and mathematical prodigy, is born outside Philadelphia.
1743
Franklin announces the formation of the American Philosophical Society. After a brief flurry of activity, it lies dormant for almost two decades.
1749
Franklin begins public campaign for creation of an academy and college in Philadelphia, the future University of Pennsylvania.
1751
Franklin publishes details of the lightning rod in his newspaper, the
Pennsylvania Gazette
. As with his other inventions, he declines to patent it.
1753
The Royal Society of London awards Franklin its Copley Medal, the world’s most prestigious prize for science, for his experiments in electricity.
1754
Franklin proposes his Plan of Union, at a colonial conference in Albany, New York, anticipating many of the elements of the future independent American political structure.
1757
Pennsylvania legislature sends Franklin to London to represent its interests before the Crown. He does not return until 1762.
1761
Americans join the global effort to observe and record the transit of Venus, in an attempt to measure the size of the known universe.
1764
Franklin is sent back to London on behalf of the Pennsylvania legislature. He returns empty-handed in 1775.
1768
Treaty of union agreed between Philadelphia’s rival knowledge societies, allowing the reconstitution of Franklin’s original American Philosophical Society.
1769
The second transit of Venus acts as a powerful spur to the activities of the American Philosophical Society. The Americans win plaudits from abroad.
1773
Creation of the Virginia Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge is announced.
1774
First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia’s Carpenters’ Hall, symbol of the power and influence of Pennsylvania’s mechanics.
1775
United Company of Philadelphia for Promoting American Manufactures is created. Similar societies are soon active in Boston, Baltimore, New York, Richmond, Wilmington, and Newark.
1776
Congress approves final text of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson and edited by Franklin and others.
 
Franklin is sent to Paris to head the American diplomatic effort to win military and political support for the rebellion against the British. He returns in triumph in 1785.
1777
Botanist John Bartram dies, four days before the British begin their nine-month occupation of Philadelphia.
1780
John Adams and others form Boston’s American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in emulation of Franklin’s American Philosophical Society.
1783
The United States, represented by Franklin, John Adams,