It's a lesson I think all of us understand.

Some things just don't mix.

Oil and water, Wiley Coyote and the Roadrunner, or 2,000 pounds of gunpowder and a bolt of lightning.

Now, if you're thinking that that last number is oddly specific, well, there's a reason for that.

Because unfortunately, 200,000 pounds was

exactly the amount of gunpowder being stored in the basement of a church in Brescia, Italy,

during one heck of a thunderstorm. It was August 19th of 1769, and the sky was lit up with

electricity. Wind lashed the houses, while the winding streets filled with rain.

And then, a single-searing lightning bolt shot down through the bastion of San Nazaro's bell tower

and landed in 90,000 kilograms of Venetian gunpowder. And look, if I was in charge of 17

elephants' worth of explosives, I probably wouldn't have

stored it in the tallest, most lightning-prone building in town.

But this was the 18th century, and back then, people believed churches to be the absolute

safest place to store something dangerous.

After all, God wouldn't let anything bad happen to a cathedral, right?

Well, not so much.

The gunpowder ignited. The massive explosion not only blew up the church, but one sixth of the entire city. Rocks shot a full kilometer into the air, crushing people and buildings as they

plummeted to earth. Windows exploded exploded and the rainstorm gave way to a

downpour of broken glass. By the time the smoke cleared, it was estimated that upwards of 3,000 people

were dead. Electricity is a mysterious force. It's capable of miraculous creation and destruction alike.

It can illuminate a light bulb or reduce

a towering oak tree to ash. And sometimes, if history is to be believed, it can even give

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