Hey grownups, the Cat in the Hatcast is a new podcast from Wondry perfect for the whole family.

Join the Cat in the Hat in your favorite Dr. Seuss characters as they get whisked away on a new adventure every week.

Listen to the Cat in the Hatcast early and add free on Wondry Plus.

Hello, I'm Claire McClanahan, producer here at Gen Z Media.

And welcome back to the second episode of our conversation with Ben Franklin expert Dr. George Boudreau.

Now, any conversation about Ben Franklin would not be a conversation about Ben Franklin without talking about his inventions, of course.

Ben Franklin is known for many things, but his role as a prolific inventor is perhaps one of the more exciting aspects of his story.

It sparks imagination.

So Dr. Boudreau, tell us about the kite electricity.

Is there anything about that story that you'd like to set straight right here on the air?

Franklin is fascinated by the natural world.

And this is a period that historians call the Enlightenment in which we describe that the religious prejudices of earlier centuries are being stepped around.

And they're now looking for ways that the world can make sense scientifically.

And so very early on he's doing this now that one of the big misconceptions is even back from the Disney cartoon from the 50s, I think that Franklin was kind of a knucklehead who one day decided to fly a kite and it got struck by lightning and he said, oh, I think this is electricity and it's a ludicrous story.

You know, as I've tried to say to my college students for generations, if you fly a kite in an electoral storm, you'll probably be struck and killed.

One historian said he came to electricity as a party game and he turned it into a science.

And so he comes up with things like positive and negative charges.

The battery had been invented. It was called a light and jar where they had metal lined glass jars that could store electricity.

And Franklin masters all of this and he's constantly looking for ways to make it practical.

At one point he was trying to have a dinner for his library company buddies and they were going to roast a turkey.

And so one of the things he does is he electrocutes the turkey with the light and jar, but bumps it with his elbow and nearly kills himself.

You know that Franklin lived to be 84 was almost miraculous because he was constantly just narrowly escaping one thing or the other.

...