On June 10, 1752, Benjamin Franklin took a kite out during a storm to see if a key attached to the string would draw an electrical charge. Or so the story goes. In fact, historians aren’t quite sure about the date of Franklin’s famous experiment, and some have questioned whether it took place at all.
Even if Franklin’s kite and key experiment did happen, it didn’t play out the way many people think it did. Contrary to popular myths, Franklin didn’t conduct the experiment to prove the existence of electricity. In addition, it’s very unlikely that lightning struck a key while Franklin was flying a kite—because if it had, Franklin probably would have died.
Scholars of Franklin have speculated that the experiment occurred around June 10, though no one really knows what date it happened on. Some have theorized that it occurred later in 1752, while others have questioned whether it happened at all, or at least acknowledged that there is room for doubt.
“The episode of the kite, so firm and fixed in legend, turns out to be dim and mystifying in fact,” wrote Carl Van Doren in his 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Benjamin Franklin. The legendary aspect of the kite and key experiment has led many people believe, incorrectly, that it marked the discovery of electricity.
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Wow. Next you will be telling me that Democrats caring about the common man is a myth.
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