Have you ever heard the story about Ben Franklin discovering Electicity with a kite?
Back in the day,...in Ben Franklin's day there were no electric lights in houses or anywhere. Nothing that uses electricity existed back then. People didn't even know that lightning was electricity.
But Benjamin Franklin had been doing some experiments and he believed that electricity and lightning were the same thing and he was determined to prove it. He knew that lightning in the sky sometimes struck objects, and he knew other things he had learned from his experiments. He decided to try an experiment with a kite, and a metal wire and a metal key next time there was a storm.
So...
One day in June, 1752, a great thunderstorm arose. For fear of ridicule he said nothing to anyone about what he intended to do. Taking his little son, William, with him he went into the fields and stood under a cowshed. They got the kite flying in the air before the rain began.
A piece of silk ribbon was tied to the end of the kite string. Franklin held the silk ribbon in his hand because he knew that the electricity would not pass through the silk and electrify him.
Ben Franklin proved that Lightning was electricity and he even saved some electic force in a Leydon Jar as part of his experiment. Fortunately Ben knew how to not killed by the electric shock. Another man tried to repeat the kite experiment and it worked, but that man was killed standing on his roof when the electric lightning shocked him.
