Ben Franklin wove colored fibers into paper currency to foil counterfeiters

One of my favorite bits of errata about the musical Hamilton was how much Lin-Manuel Miranda felt troubled that he couldn't quite fit more about Ben Franklin in given time constraints and the overall plot shape. He did write a song for Ben Franklin and then after the musical blew up he eventually passed "Ben Franklin's Song" to The Decemberists. I think it is such a fun song. It uses some very boastful cursing, but Ben Franklin as a person certainly earned that.

On the interesting front and semi-related to the article at hand, I remain amused by a somewhat recent news story of a building in Paris getting renovated for the first time in decades and the renovators discovering a bunch of very early American currency in the walls but that not being anything of a mystery because "of course" that was likely where the bordello Ben Franklin most hung out in while ambassador to France had been. (I believe he also famously recommended it to Thomas Jefferson when Jefferson took over that role from him, though I don't think Jefferson was quite the same sort of person to appreciate such an "ambassadorial" tip.)

Also, from time to time I think about Ben Franklin's suggestion that the national bird should have been the Turkey. Turkeys are far more utilitarian than eagles, and also native exclusively to the continent. (Plus Turkeys are often deeply symbolic in what became the American Thanksgiving story.) I think Franklin was probably right about that being a better choice of icon for early American history and sometimes like to imagine what the US would look like if it had Turkey icons and statues everywhere like the bald eagle has. I think the Department of Defense seal with a turkey would actually be scarier than the current "war eagle", but I've also seen a turkey murder a car because it caught its own reflection in the car's glossy/waxed paint job, decided that reflection must be a rival turkey, and felt that was a fight it needed to pick. (If you want to believe that may even be a metaphor for the modern US Department of Defense in general, I won't stop you.)