Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 at what most agree was approximately 10:30 am LMT in Boston, Massachusetts which gives him a robust ascending degree of 7 Aries 19 for its is ruled by active Mars.
Now I want to go into Franklin's death horoscope a little since I discovered in a biography of him by Sidney George Fisher that the physician on the scene provided Franklin's time of death as "about 11 o'clock at night."
Here are the details of when Benjamin left us:
Death of Benjamin Franklin April 17, 1790 10:55 pm (5 mins before 11 pm is my choice) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This gives an Ascendant degree of 20Sag07 and his natal Mars rising. As you know, in death horoscopes there is generally at least one malefic planet on a chart angle and here what can be more malefic than Mars, planet of infections and attacks?
(Note: his natal Mars degree and death Ascendant @21Sag have an apt Sabian Symbol for the inventor of bifocal spectacles: "A Child and a Dog with Borrowed Eyeglasses"!)
During his lifetime, Dr. Franklin suffered bouts of painful gout from overindulgence and had contracted pleurisy as well so his physician's description of his final 16 days after becoming feverish, then having an abscess on his lung burst makes for predictable results. Benjamin Franklin is naturally associated in an astrologer's mind with America's favorite planet of freedom, independence, and revolution, Uranus, and no less so than with Franklin'd death for he slipped away peacefully (for his pain had left him 5 days earlier, thankfully) during his Uranus Return period which happens to us all if we live to age 84 and after.
Ben Franklin's natal Uranus @6Leo51 Rx (conjunct US natal North Node = radical politics and reforms!) returned to its position in his natal horoscope three times in 1789/90: August 24, 1789; February 11, 1790 Rx--about 5 weeks prior to his death; and June 9, 1790. As you see, the third one he didn't manage to attend.
Now Uranus is also a planet of sudden events, attacks, and separations and rules electricity which figures into Ben Franklin's high popularity and world renown during his lifetime since he was apparently the first man to equate lightening with electricity. Yes, it seems quite duh! now but was a new idea then.
Actually his death horoscope shows a YOD (a crisis/turning point pattern with health connotations) of Venus sextile ASC (and thus sextile his natal Mars, his chart-ruler) pointing toward disruptive Uranus @5Leo20 (Leo, ruled by the Sun which rules the heart and spine) in the 8th house of Death and Transformation. And this Uranus is in the midst of Franklin's Uranus Return which is obvious because his age at death was 84 years + 3 months.
Well, that's my brief bit of blogging time for today so I hope you may add Benjamin Franklin's death horoscope to your files if you haven't already for it displays several other features, patterns, and transits which you may find quite interesting.
This post composed to the sounds of Radiohead's 'True Love Waits (Live in Oslo)'.
