Podbit · The Rest Is History
Franklin is the only person to have signed all four foundational documents of the United States. When news of the French alliance reached George Washington, he was so excited he dropped his dignity and played cricket. That is the scale of what Franklin achieved.
Where this was said
At 6:55 · chapter starts 5:55
Tom Holland opens his case for Franklin with unmistakable enthusiasm: this is a man he finds both impressive and genuinely appealing, a contrast to the dogmatic revolutionaries who typically populate this kind of history. Franklin is the most famous American of the 18th century by miles, admired not just in America but across Europe, and his carefully curated image of mingled amiability and resolve is no less authentic for being a performance [1] — Tom Holland "Franklin is the only person to have signed all four foundational documents of the United States. When news of the French alliance reached G…" 06:55 . As the only man to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty with France, the Peace Treaty with Britain, and the Constitution, Franklin's fingerprints are on every hinge of the Republic's founding — and when news of the French alliance reached Washington, he reportedly dropped his dignity and played cricket. The hosts agree Franklin belongs on the $100 bill.
Franklin is the only person to sign all four foundational documents of the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty with France, the Peace Treaty with Britain, and the Constitution.
Franklin spent a third of his life in Britain, attended George III's coronation, and called the king 'the most amiable of kings.' He was not a revolutionary by nature — he was one by experience. His transformation from loyalist to founding father is the story of how the colonies themselves changed.
Franklin spent approximately a third of his life in Britain, living for 16 years between 1757 and 1775 in a house just off what is now Trafalgar Square in London.
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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