Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706 in Boston, Massachusetts to an American mother, Abiah Folger, and British father, Josiah Franklin. He was a key founder of the United States and the only statesman to have signed all four documents that created a new nation. He is also considered the father of electricity, whose work advanced the Age of Enlightenment. While Franklin died in 1790, he remains one of the most remarkable men in American history and his autobiography is considered to be among the best of its genre in the world.