This Day in History May 9, 1754

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Okay, imagine you get up and see this in the paper or on the news tomorrow morning.  What would you think?  Would you understand the message.  I can only hope that if you were living on this date in 1754 you would understand Benjamin Franklin's message.  He published the first cartoon in America, and it was political in nature.  He published this in his Pennsylvania Gazette.  And what was his meaning?

At this time in our history, there were eight colonial governments.  The popular theory at this time was that if a severed snake were put back together before sunset, it would come back to life.  You can see eight pieces of the snake which represented the eight colonies.  Franklin was suggesting that these colonies needed to be unified against the French and the Native Americans.

It was circulated widely, and it eventually became a symbol of the American Revolution.

For more information, please check out:
http://www.thinkfinity.org/2011-05-09_first-american-political-cartoon
http://pacificvs.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/picture-21.png
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/cartoon/