This Day in History: 1752-06-15

Franklin’s experiment on this day in 1752 proves that lightning is  electricity. This experiment, more than many other achievements in his life,  elevates the clever  printer to the status of world-class scientist. The moment was quickly  mythologized, and Europeans begin to see Franklin as something of a wizard, able to draw lightning from the sky. The myth was an enormous help when Franklin enlisted French help in the American Revolution 25 years later. Parts of the myth are quite wrong, however:  Franklin’s kite was probably not struck by lightning, since of course he  would have been electrocuted if it had been. Instead, the kite transferred a low-voltage electrical charge from the storm.  British American painter Benjamin West gave the myth an heroic Renaissance gloss, complete with attending cherubim,  in an 1816 painting.