However, he wrote it after detailed correspondence with Franklin, so his account is generally believed to be reliable.
One of Franklin’s lightning rods saved his own house years later, during a storm.Īlthough Franklin described his kite endeavor in a letter later that fall, the full account of the experiment wasn’t written down until 15 years after the fact by a man who wasn’t even present: Joseph Priestly. He used the information he gained to design lightning rods, which conducted a storm’s electrical charge safely into the ground. Several others who attempted it after him were electrocuted. The electrical charge from the storm overhead passed through the key and into the Leyden jar.įranklin, as it turns out, was lucky to have conducted this experiment safely. He then tied a silk ribbon to the key, which he held onto from inside a shed, to keep it dry. From the key, he ran a wire into a Leyden jar, a container that stored electrical charge. He tied the kite to a silk string with an iron key on the end of the string. On this day in 1752, Benjamin Franklin is believed to have performed his famous kite experiment and proved that lightning is electricity. Four copies of the original charter remain. The influence of the Magna Carta and its core principles can be seen in the United States Bill of Rights (1791) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) and the constitutions of many modern nations.
Over the centuries, much of it has been repealed, but a few of the clauses remain as a cornerstone of British law - particularly the third clause, which states: “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.” But it opened up a dialogue about the proper relationship between a monarch and his subjects. John had no intention of upholding the Magna Carta as written, and he wasted no time in heavily editing it. He met with the barons under a yew tree in the meadow of Runnymede, near the River Thames, and there placed his seal on the charter. Other kings had granted charters, but John was the first one to be forced into it. Most of the document dealt with those specific complaints, but there were also some revolutionary ideas in the charter - including the idea that the king should be subject to the same law as everyone else in the land.
England’s barons felt the Crown had gone too far in its taxation of the noblemen and the church, in order to pay a mercenary army and finance the Third Crusade.
England’s King John was facing a political crisis that was approaching civil war. The Magna Carta - the “Great Charter” - was sealed on this date in 1215.