Ask for favors, live longer

Hamilton & Franklin, a trick to make people like you, and 7 other things worth your time.

Alexander Hamilton is hot right now, but if you’re a Benjamin Franklin impersonator, times are tough. Most of this has to do with the success of Hamilton, of course. Franklin is among the unfortunate Founding Fathers who never make an appearance.

That makes historical sense — their paths crossed intermittently, as Franklin was 49 years older than Hamilton, and he was in France during most of the Revolution. But I’ve always had the sense that these two were opposites in a key way—and now I’ve put a few hours of “amateur historianing” into testing it:

• As Lin-Manuel Miranda put it once, Hamilton “caught beef with every other Founding Father.”

• But Franklin was a consummate diplomat who found a way to get along with almost everyone. He was such a popular icon during his time in France that his hat and wig inspired fashion trends.

In fact, Franklin was so good at getting along even with people who didn’t like him, that a story from his autobiography led to his trick being called the Ben Frankl…