Kobe Miyashita never expected to hold Benjamin Franklin's handwriting in his hands when he applied to represent Guam at the Young People's Continental Congress in Philadelphia this summer.

Franklin’s time was as divided as ours, if not more so. Yet he made it a point to befriend those with whom he disagreed vehemently, for you never know what might emerge from such encounters.

For Franklin, it starts early. In 1717, having alarmed his Puritan father with talk of a life on the seas, 12-year-old Franklin is set up as an apprentice to his elder brother, James, a printer.