Father of invention

The London residence of Benjamin Franklin - scientist, diplomat, philosopher, inventor and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States - opened to the public for the first time this week. Benjamin Franklin House, a Grade I-listed building, is the world's only remaining Franklin home and opened in time to mark the 300th anniversary of his birth.

Franklin conducted many important experiments at 36 Craven Street between 1757 and 1775, including measuring the effects of the Gulf Stream, exploring Daylight Saving Time and developing bifocal lenses there. One of his inventions, the glass armonica, is an instrument for which Mozart, Bach and Beethoven composed. Excavations of the building's basement in 1998 revealed more than 1,200 cut and trepanned bones, apparently discarded following student dissections