Thunderstruck

by Erik Larson

“It doesn’t matter what you do,” he said, “so long as you don’t frighten the horses.”

with a gentleman named Thales, who discovered that by rubbing amber he could attract to it small bits of things, like beard hair and lint. The Greek word for amber was elektron.

The study of electricity got a big boost in 1745 with the invention of the Leyden jar, the first device capable of storing and amplifying static electricity.

Tesla wrote in the Century article. “Not only this, but through television and telephone we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face.” That word: television. In 1900.