Lightning in a bottle
Ben Franklin most certainly never executed his kite-and-key experiment—at least not the kind that was immortalized in myth. However another of his descriptions—of an experiment that he also never conducted—inspired a couple of French guys. The experiment involved a large pointy electrode pointed at the sky with a metallic box in which a human could sit and be unperturbed by the lightning—so long as he was dry and holding onto wax handles. Georges-Louis Leclerc and Thomas-François Dalibard weren’t quite as daring as Franklin described—the image below is misleading—but they did put a wine bottle (a Leyden Jar) underneath a tower on May 23rd 1752 in Marly Le Ville. At 12:20 pm lightning hit the pole, and an assistant rushed to retrieve the bottle. He received a shock, much like those observed in a regular Leyden Jar. This was a significant revelation: lightning was made of the same stuff as the electricity made by man. This had an important metaphorical meaning: the wrath of Gods had been brought under the control of mankind.
Source: Franklin, Benjamin. Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America. London: Printed and sold by E. Cave, 1751.
Public Domain
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!