Ciekawostka: In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats

Evidence: 27 • authority: 72

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. The technology was already used to some extent in France to protect wooden buildings, and was therefore an accepted science concept that developed into a temporary fashion.

Evidence: 20 • authority: 80

Lightning Rod': A Southern Unionist's Blustery Observations On War, Slavery, And The Free Press

Evidence: 20 • authority: 80

Styles of Experimentation and the Attempts to Establish the Lightning Rod in Pre-Revolutionary Paris

Evidence: — • authority: 35