Animated Hero Classics - Season 1, Episode 04: Benjamin Franklin: Scientist and Inventor

Benjamin Franklin knows that a traveling show 'magician' is using an electromagnetic generating machine to perform the 'tricks.' Intrigued by the possibilities of electricity, Franklin buys the machine. On a wall at his home, hang Franklin's 'many hats.' He is- or has been - a diplomat, inventor, printer, postmaster and fire chief. Now he contemplates the power of electricity. He doesn't know what to do with it, but he knows it is important. 'The power of the future,' he says, 'the friend of mankind.' But right now mankind in Philadelphia is threatened by a series of thunderstorms. With regularity, lightning strikes, setting fires all over the town. Franklin's fire department, although equipped with the latest 18th Century fire-fighting equipment, is helpless against its power. Meanwhile, Franklin continues to play with electricity. He begins to understand how electricity flows from one place to another. Another lightning bolt sets fire to yet another house. Justice Hill declares that lightning is a 'judgment from God against our wicked ways.' Franklin, a man of deep faith and a man of science, doesn't think so. He observes that lightning tends to strike only the tallest buildings in an area. A short time later, on a night when lightning is setting fires everywhere, Franklin has a revelation. What if lightning were electricity? Then it might be controlled. Franklin conducts his famous experiment. Flying a kite in a thunderstorm, he confines the power of a lightning bolt in a leydon jar, a type of early storage battery. Now he knows how to control electricity. With lightning rods on top of their buildings and iron cables going down to the earth, the people of Philadelphia are protected.

Genre: Animation