Thunderstruck

by Erik Larson

One researcher, Georg Richman, a Swede living in Russia, took a disastrous lead in 1753 when, in the midst of an attempt to harness lightning to charge an electrostatic device, a huge spark leaped from the apparatus to his head, making him the first scientist to die by electrocution.

Crippen was lonely, and genetic fate had conspired to keep him that way. He was not handsome, and his short stature and small bones conveyed neither strength nor virility. Even his scalp had betrayed him, his hair having begun a brisk retreat years before.

What a beautiful way to say this motherfucker was ugly.

In those days members of the congregation paid the pastor for their seats, with the highest-priced pews in front selling for forty dollars a year.

Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem. An asylum for the insane, its name had shrunk through popular usage to Bedlam, which eventually entered dictionaries as a lowercase word used to describe scenes of chaos and confusion.

Many in England feared that worse was yet to come and blamed the unrest on policies that allowed too many foreigners to seek refuge within the nation’s borders.

Some things haven’t changed.

Fleming worked out details about how to amplify power to provide a spark intense enough to create waves capable of jumping the Atlantic, and how to do so safely, for with so much voltage coursing through the system even the act of keying a message could prove lethal. No ordinary Morse key could handle the power. This key would be a lever requiring muscle to operate, and courage as well, especially when sending Morse dashes—which required longer pulses of energy and increased the threat that uncontrolled sparks, or arcs, would be unleashed.

The point was to compel prisoners to contemplate their behavior and—through solitary work, daily religious services, and the reading of soul-improving literature—to encourage them to shed their unhealthy behavior. In practice the separate system drove many insane and prompted a succession of suicides.