1770s
Gentlemen could simultaneously work on strengthening those dominant arm muscles as they strolled along in a rainy, or may be even dry weather.
Ladies could improve their angelic posture by constantly using those neck muscles to drag that dirty metal rope around.
Six or seven feet of electrifyingly unifying metal, snaking in one’s wake. After all, what else could bring two genders closer to each other?
The official history tells us the following:
- Lightning rod fashion was a fad in late eighteenth-century Europe after the lightning rod, invented by Benjamin Franklin, was introduced. Lightning rod hats for ladies and lightning umbrellas for gentlemen were most popular in France, especially in Paris. The concept that inspired the fashion was that a lightning bolt would strike the Franklin-designed protective device instead of the person, and then the electricity would travel down a small metal chain into the ground harmlessly.
Once again we are being misled by the official pseudo-history. A little bit of research into the 18th/19th century atmospheric conditions could explain where the motivation to drag around that dirty wire was coming from.
- "M. Plante" cites an account of a violent storm which took place on the 27th of July 1769, during which several hundred persons being congregated in a large public hall suddenly saw a fiery globe the size of a large cannon ball appear through an opening in the roof. All the lights immediately went out, and more than seventy-six persons were killed or wounded."
It would be a sign of disrespect, and inconsistency of logic to suggest that our ancestors were smart enough to carve carnelian masterpiece rings 5,000 years ago, while simultaneously getting killed in droves by lightning, and doing nothing about it.
Mr. Franklin outdid all of them physicists of Newton’s caliber, as well as other over-educated individuals who came before him. He invented a lightning rod and solved a global problem.
KD: it appears there was no need for lightning rods prior to a certain moment in time which could coincides with the life span of Benjamin Franklin. Yet, our historians will go the distance to prevent general public from knowing that atmospheric conditions suffered a drastic change as recently as 200-400 years ago.
I can understand this position of the officials. What if the general public asked why those atmospheric conditions got changed...
It appears, 200-250 years ago, there was a fairly high probability of getting wacked by a bolt of lightning, and those poor people were simply trying to up their chances, and avoid getting killed. Therefore it was not a fashion, it was a necessity (imo).
