Opportunity

This episode explores how seizing the right moment can shape both a life and a nation. Through dramatized portraits of Benjamin Franklin and publisher Cyrus H. K. Curtis, the program traces how ambition, persistence, and imagination transformed modest beginnings into lasting American achievements. From Franklin’s journey to Philadelphia and his experiments with electricity, to Curtis’s rise from newspaper boy to publishing pioneer behind the Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, the story celebrates opportunity as the driving force behind innovation, leadership, and progress in American history. Originally aired: April 8, 1936.