A taste of his own medicine

One of the little things that always got in Benjamin Franklin's way was copyright law. Britain's Ministry of Contrivance and, later, America's own Office of Patent and Copyright, issued constant citations to Franklin, who had little patience for academic integrity. One thing which neither bureau could deny, however, was that as far as anyone could tell, Franklin's The Unsteady Colony (a largely forgotten 300 page account of the period from 1753 to 1759 when the Massachusetts Bay colony was caught in a power struggle between France and Britain) seemed to be his own work.
Ironically, that very composition itself fell prey to Franklin's specialty, plagiarism, over 200 years later. In 1954, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard found himself in something of a time crunch. He had promised his publisher three novels, and had so far only completed one. Flipping through the old classics in search of inspiration, Hubbard stumbled upon Franklin's book. Desperate to make his deadline, Hubbard copied the text nearly word for word, altering it only to remove the obligatory thees and thous, and to change its setting. Thus, the British became the "Xenu", the French became "Betans", etc. The book, called "Dianetics", became the foundation for Hubbard's religion Scientology.
So who plays the part of George Washington in Hubbard's version? Risky Business actor, Tom Cruise.