Benjamin Franklin Electricity - It is the common belief that he "invented" it.
In fact, electricity did not begin when Benjamin Franklin flew his kite during a thunderstorm or when light bulbs were installed in houses all around the world.
To Benjamin Franklin electricity was a curiosity.
The truth is that electricity has always been around because it naturally exists in the world. Lightning, for instance, is simply a flow of electrons between the ground and the clouds. When you touch something and get a shock, that is really static electricity moving toward you.
Benjamin Franklin began working on electricity after he heard a lecture about it in Scotland in 1743. Five years later he sent a letter on it to the Royal Society. In 1751 he published his book of electrical experiments in England.
Benjamin Franklin was very smart. He was not afraid to experiment. When a thought popped in his head, like lightning is a source of electricity, he had the determination to prove it. The story is that he and three of his friends were trying to analyze electricity and experiment with it. Two of his friends got electrocuted while they were working on this, so Franklin decided to do the kite experiment, alone.
Electrical equipment like motors, light bulbs, and batteries aren't needed for electricity to exist. They are just creative inventions designed to harness and use electric power.
The first discoveries of electric power were made back in ancient Greece. Greek philosophers discovered that when amber is rubbed against cloth, lightweight objects will stick to it. This is the basis of static electricity.
Over the centuries, there have been many discoveries made about electric power. We've all heard of famous people like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, but there have been many other inventors throughout history that were each a part in the development of electric power.
Benjamin Franklin was an American writer, publisher, scientist and diplomat, who helped to draw up the famous Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. In 1752 Franklin proved that lightning and the spark from amber were one and the same thing. The story of this famous milestone is a familiar one, in which he fastened an iron spike to a silken kite, which he flew during a thunderstorm, while holding the end of the kite string by an iron key. When lightening flashed, a tiny spark jumped from the key to his wrist. The experiment proved Benjamin Franklin's electricity theory, but was extremely dangerous - He could easily have been killed.
But he wasn't and because of his curiosity and bravery and the hard work of innovators after him, electric power is now an every day reality.
Franklin was interested in science and technology, carrying out his famous electricity experiments and inventing—in addition to the lightning rod—the Franklin stove, catheter, swimfins, glass harmonica, and bifocals. He also played a major role in establishing the University of Pennsylvania and Franklin and Marshall College. He was elected the first president of the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, in 1769. Fluent in five languages, he is generally recognized as a polymath.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Franklin learned printing from his older brother and became a newspaper editor, printer, and merchant in Philadelphia, becoming very wealthy. He spent many years in England and published the famous Poor Richard's Almanac and the Pennsylvania Gazette. He formed both the first public lending library and fire department in America as well as the Junto, a political discussion club. During this period he wrote in favor of paper money, against mercantilist policies such as the Iron Act of 1750, and also drafted, in 1754, the Albany Plan of Union, which would have created a continental legislature; demonstrating how early he conceived of the colonies as being naturally one political unit.
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