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This newspaper page contains 4 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Location
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States of America
Date
Apr 01, 1996
Page
17
Benjamin Franklin conducts a dangerous 1752 experiment by flying a kite made from a silk handkerchief with a wire and a key to attract lightning, demonstrating that lightning is electricity.
Franklin and his son William flew a kite during unstable weather risking severe injury or death. They faced likely fatal consequences if the storm had intensified, highlighting the peril of the dangerous experiment.
The text notes Benjamin Franklin’s electricity experiments, including a bolt striking a kite wire and rising from the key. It credits his work for inventing the lightning rod and mentions his broader contributions, such as coining the word battery, and his life span from 1706 to 1790.
The excerpt blends a childlike ode to the wind with a biographical note about Robert Louis Stevenson. It mentions his two children's works Treasure Island and A Child's Garden of Verses, and states his lifespan from 1850 to 1894, noting his poems avoided explicit moral lessons and treated everyday things simply.
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