In 1750, Benjamin Franklin Electrocuted Himself While Attempting To Execute A Turkey At A Dinner Party

Franklin had a pretty mixed relationship with both electricity and turkeys. Famously, he was the first person to experimentally demonstrate that lightning is an electrostatic discharge. He did so in an experiment that goes against all the safety advice you were ever given as a child: flying a kite during a thunderstorm.

In that experiment, according to British scientist Joseph Priestley, Franklin's son was actually the one to fly the kite up into the air. Though 21-years-old at the time, that's still not great parenting, even if you are about to revolutionize our understanding of what lightning is.

"As soon as any of the Thunder Clouds come over the Kite, the pointed Wire will draw the Electric Fire from them, and the Kite, with all the Twine, will be electrified, and the loose Filaments of the Twine will stand out every Way, and be attracted by an approaching Finger," Franklin explained of the experiment in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1752.

"And when the Rain has wet the Kite and Twine, so that it can conduct the Electric Fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the Key on the Approach of your Knuckle. At this Key the Phial may be charg’d; and from Electric Fire thus obtain’d, Spirits may be kindled, and all the other Electric Experiments be perform’d, which are usually done by the Help of a rubbed Glass Globe or Tube; and thereby the Sameness of the Electric Matter with that of Lightning compleatly demonstrated."

Franklin's electrical experiments did not stop there. At some point, he became convinced that turkeys were much better to eat if you electrocuted them to death, rather than a traditional beheading. Writing to a friend, he remarked that “the Birds killed in this Manner eat uncommonly tender." 

Electrical experiments were a common topic in Franklin’s letters, and he told the same friend, Peter Collinson, "I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time, as this has lately done," after Collinson purchased him a Leyden jar as a gift.

Franklin was a fan of using electricity for entertainment purposes, for example serving wine in slightly electrified cups at dinner parties, which would shock guests as they attempted to enjoy their merlot.

In another uncommon sight at modern-day dinner parties (maybe a nice game of Carcassonne would be preferable), Franklin would also kill turkeys with Leyden jars to really get the party started. In a letter from 1750, he explains why this isn't such a great idea.

"I have lately made an Experiment in Electricity that I desire never to repeat. Two nights ago being about to kill a Turkey by the Shock from two large Glass Jarrs containing as much electrical fire as forty common Phials, I inadvertently took the whole thro' my own Arms and Body," he wrote in the letter.

"The first thing I took notice of was a violent, quick shaking of my body, which gradually remitting, my sense as gradually returned."

Franklin performed this experiment in front of a crowd, who reported that they had seen a flash, and heard a loud crack, which Franklin himself did not.

“It seem’d an universal Blow from head to foot throughout the Body, and was follow’d by a violent quick Trembling in the Trunk, which wore gradually off in a few seconds," Franklin added. "It was some Moments before I could collect my Thoughts so as to know what was the Matter."

Though he had a little numbness afterwards, Franklin doesn't seem to have been too badly damaged by the incident. In fact, he was able to put his own bright spin on the situation.

"In making these Experiments, I found that a Man can without great Detriment bear a much greater Electrical Shock than I imagin’d," he wrote, though he added, "what the Consequence would be, if such a Shock were taken thro’ the Head, I know not."