Today in History: 1752 – Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment
On a June afternoon in 1752, the sky began to darken over the city of Philadelphia. As rain began to fall and lightning threatened, most of the city’s citizens surely hurried inside. But not Benjamin Franklin. He decided it was the perfect time to go fly a kite.Franklin had been waiting for an opportunity like this. He wanted to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning, and to do so, he needed a thunderstorm.
He had his materials at the ready: a simple kite made with a large silk handkerchief, a hemp string, and a silk string. He also had a house key, a Leyden jar (a device that could store an electrical charge for later use), and a sharp length of wire. His son William assisted him.
Franklin had originally planned to conduct the experiment atop a Philadelphia church spire, according to his contemporary, British scientist Joseph Priestley (who, incidentally, is credited with discovering oxygen), but he changed his plans when he realized he could achieve the same goal by using a kite.
So Franklin and his son “took the opportunity of the first approaching thunder storm to take a walk into a field,” Priestley wrote in his account. “To demonstrate, in the completest manner possible, the sameness of the electric fluid with the matter of lightning, Dr. Franklin, astonishing as it must have appeared, contrived actually to bring lightning from the heavens, by means of an electrical kite, which he raised when a storm of thunder was perceived to be coming on.”
Despite a common misconception, Benjamin Franklin did not discover electricity during this experiment—or at all, for that matter. Electrical forces had been recognized for more than a thousand years, and scientists had worked extensively with static electricity. Franklin’s experiment demonstrated the connection between lightning and electricity.
Read more here
Births On This Day
1926 Lionel Jeffries - British actor (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Camelot)
1922 Bill Kerr - South African-born Australian actor (Hancock’s Half Hour)
1922 Judy Garland [Frances Ethel Gumm] - American actress, singer (The Wizard of Oz)
1921 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh - Greek/English husband of Queen Elizabeth II
1910 Howlin’ Wolf [Chester Arthur Burnett] - American blues musician (Smokestack Lightnin’, Killing Floor)
Deaths On This Day
2009 Tenniel Evans - British actor and clergyman (10 Rillington Place, My Brother’s Keeper, The Navy Lark)
2004 Ray Charles - American singer-songwriter, pianist, actor
1993 Les Dawson - English Comedian and pianist
1967 Spencer Tracy - American actor (Woman of the Year, Father of the Bride)
323 BC Alexander the Great - Macedonian king
The Funnies:
On the Menu Today – Bacon Jalapeño Corn Salad
Finally, a salad recipe ! I don’t normally eat salad, but I’d definitely put a massive dent in this (as long as someone else eats the jalapenos)!
Ingredients
- 500 g corn
- 6 slices cooked bacon
- 1 tbsp. coriander
- 1 jalapeño, crushed
- 80 g mayonnaise
- Juice of 2 limes
- 1 tsp. chilli powder
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
Method
- In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Stir until ingredients are completely mixed and coated in dressing. Garnish with herbs, if desired, then serve.
Quote of the Day:
“A lot of the stories were highly suspicious, in her opinion. There was the one that ended when the two good children pushed the wicked witch into her own oven…Stories like this stopped people thinking properly, she was sure. She’d read that one and thought, Excuse me? No one has an oven big enough to get a whole person in, and what made the children think they could just walk around eating people’s houses in any case? And why does some boy too stupid to know a cow is worth a lot more than five beans have the right to murder a giant and steal all his gold? Not to mention commit an act of ecological vandalism? And some girl who can’t tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either have been as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family.”
― Terry Pratchett – The Wee Free Men
Comic of the Day:
Back to the random oldies, as there was no new one last night.
Mouseover: “The other side of the USB-C is rotationally symmetric except that the 3rd pin from the top is designated FIREWIRE TRIBUTE PIN.”
Image Credit: xkcd: Pinouts
Inspirobot Always Controversial, Occasionally Inspirational Quote of the Day:
Read @liamsullivan 's net-neutral Spark! from Monday here
