Every schoolchild in America knows that Benjamin Franklin flew a
kite during a thunderstorm in the summer of 1752. Electricity from
the clouds above traveled down the kite's twine and threw a spark
from a key that Franklin had attached to the string. He thereby
proved that lightning and electricity were one.
What many of us do not realize is that Franklin used this
breakthrough in his day's intensely competitive field of electrical
science to embarrass his French and English rivals. His kite
experiment was an international event and the Franklin that it
presented to the world--a homespun, rural philosopher-scientist
performing an immensely important and dangerous experiment with a
child's toy--became the Franklin of myth. In fact, this sly
presentation on Franklin's part so charmed the French that he
became an irresistible celebrity when he traveled there during the
American Revolution. The crowds and the journalists, and the
ladies, cajoled the French powers into joining us in our fight
against the British.
What no one has successfully proven until now--and what few have
suggested--is that Franklin never flew the kite at all. Benjamin
Franklin was an enthusiastic hoaxer. And with the electric kite, he
performed his greatest hoax. As Tucker shows, it was this trick
that may have won the American Revolution.
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