Being both near and short sighted, Franklin really did invent bifocal glasses, in the 1760s. The name bifocal was coined by John Isaak Hawkins when he invented trifocals.
15 Founding Father Invention Myths
The urbane Thomas Jefferson is alleged to have invented everything from the Folding Bed to Macaroni and Cheese, while his pragmatic gentleman scientist counterpart, Benjamin Franklin, is credited with the invention of a multitude of items from the Odometer to Swim Fins. None of these were actually pioneered by them, however Franklin did invent both Bifocal Glasses and the Lightning Conductor and it was Jefferson who ironically invented the geekiest device of all, the disk cipher. George Washington, on the other hand, lent his skills to farming and invented the splendidly bucolic 16 Sided Threshing Barn.
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People had been playing glass harps by running wet fingers round the rims of varying sized bowls for years, before Franklin turned them on their side and rotated them so that you didn't need to move your fingers round.<p /><p />This is indeed a genuine Franklin invention, but more of a curio compared to others.
Franklin first proposed that lightning was electricity, but contrary to popular belief, he was not the first to prove it. Nevertheless, Franklin's contributions to the field (no pun intended) were significant, he coined terms such as battery and did indeed invent the lightning rod which safely earths tall buildings.
A 16 sided threshing barn is a bit of an obscure invention, although, to be fair, Washington is better known for his agricultural ideas than physical inventions.
Jefferson did indeed develop a more rational approach to plow design.<p />Although his claims of its benefits are sound, it did not become widely adopted, so it remains questionable whether it was an invention of any real importance.
The multi wheel encryption device, which was later called a Bazeries Cylinder after its development in Europe a hundred years later, was a novel device invented by Thomas Jefferson.
Being influential, Franklin was involved in putting street lights in Philadelphia, however they existed in other cities before and had nothing to do with him, there.
Although Franklin did experiment with what could be considered a homebrew version of a swim fin, before they were were commercially available, there were others, including Leonardo da Vinci that had similar ideas before him.
Possibly introduced into the Americas by Jefferson similar devices were created earlier elsewhere.
It is possible that the Jeffersons were early American eaters of the stuff, seeing as how they had brought their own pasta machine from Europe, but combining cheese with pasta was almost certainly not invented in the US.
Similar designs were known in Europe, prior to the one designed by Jefferson at Monticello.
Catheters were used by both ancient Egyptians and Greeks. The modern form of catheter was invented in Europe and brought to the US.
Odometers existed when Franklin was alive, but they were not invented by him, nor were they called Odometers.
The beds at Monticello were not hideaway in the sense that they did not fold up. Instead they were contained in neat little alcoves, so that they could be moved out, a trick which had been brought over from Europe.
Among the many new fangled contraptions that Jefferson introduced to his Palladian home, Monticello, was a swivel version of a Windsor Chair. Swivel chairs preceded this, even if the swivel Windsor was perhaps unique.
