Flying a Kite

Our most recent special issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly was published on the fifteenth of June, which of course is a gigantic day in the utility regulation and policy community. The fifteenth of June is obviously the anniversary of electricity's discovery by Ben Franklin.

On this day in 1752, twenty-four years before the Declaration of Independence, Ben literally flew a kite in a Philadelphia storm and captured electricity, charging a Leyden Jar, verifying that lightning and electricity were similar. Do not try that at home by the way, lest you become a lightning rod, literally.


Lead image: ID 47770431, Georgios Kollidas, Dreamstime.com