Most Americans are familiar with the story of Benjamin Franklin and his famous 18th-century experiment in which he attached a metal key to a kite during a thunderstorm to see if the lightning would ...

Benjamin Franklin experimented with electricity on fowl. Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis, courtesy of The Library of Congress In 1751 Benjamin Franklin planned an electrical ...

In the mid-18th century, Benjamin Franklin helped elucidate the nature of lightning and endorsed the protective value of lightning rods. And yet, a hundred years later, much of the public remained ...