Today, people have many misconceptions about Benjamin Franklin’s contribution to the study of electricity and his famous kite experiment. First of all, Franklin didn’t discover electricity; electrical force was a subject of scientific interest for centuries, but its properties and potential applications weren’t well understood. Franklin’s 1752 experiment was only meant to prove a connection between electricity and lightning (in fact, another scientist in Europe had already proven this relationship a month before Franklin).
It is true that Franklin flew a kite during a thunderstorm, but it wasn’t struck by lightning and he wasn’t electrocuted. When Franklin examined his kite, he received only a small shock from static electricity. Not as dramatic as the lightning strike we think of today, but it was enough to prove his thesis.
However, Franklin was severely electrocuted on another occasion, and for a much less scientific reason: He was cooking dinner. Franklin had been studying electricity since 1745, and he believed that electrocuting a turkey made the meat “uncommonly tender.” One night in 1749, Franklin was trying to electrocute a turkey when he accidentally touched one of his two Leyden jars (an early electrical component used to generate electricity) and received a shock.
Franklin himself didn’t remember what happened next, but onlookers said Franklin shook violently. Franklin experienced momentary numbness and a few days of soreness, but the experience arguably taught him just as much about electricity as the kite experiment did.
