dada » Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:43 pm wrote:But I think my favorite anecdote for this time of year is the story about Ben Franklin almost electrocuting himself while trying to cook a turkey, two hundred and seventy years ago.
(In a letter dated 25 December 1750, Franklin describes his attempt to electrocute a turkey, which didn’t work out as he had intended) “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 jars, containing as much electrical fire as forty common phials, I inadvertently took the whole through my own arms and body, by receiving the fire from the united top wires with one hand, while the other held a chain connected with the outsides of both jars.”
Onlookers report a bright flash accompanied by a loud crack. Franklin vibrated violently, then was knocked unconscious.
For some reason this reminds me of Tycho Brahe's tame elk.
Tycho often held large social gatherings in his castle. Pierre Gassendi wrote that Tycho also had a tame elk (moose) and that his mentor the Landgrave Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel (Hesse-Cassel) asked whether there was an animal faster than a deer. Tycho replied that there was none, but he could send his tame elk. When Wilhelm replied he would accept one in exchange for a horse, Tycho replied with the sad news that the elk had just died on a visit to entertain a nobleman at Landskrona. Apparently, during dinner, the elk had drunk a lot of beer, fallen down the stairs, and died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe