Bolt of Fate Author:Tom Tucker Bolt of Fate is a story about invention, fraud, colonialism, electricity, revolution and revenge.Benjamin Franklin is an undisputed hero of the United States, and indeed of Western democracy. The son of a candle-maker, he used his talents and abilities to rise in colonial American society and became a politician, philanthropist, scientist, autho... more »r, newspaperman, inventor - and a master hoaxer. Bolt of Fate deals with one of the most far-reaching of these hoaxes, one that until now had not even been suspected of being a hoax. It is generally believed that Benjamin Franklin flew a kite during a thunderstorm in the summer of 1752. Electricity from the clouds above travelled down the kite's twine and threw a spark from a key that Franklin had attached to the string. He thereby proved that lightning and electricity were one.What no one has successfully proven until now, and what few have suggested, is that Franklin never flew the kite at all. Told by the Royal Society in London that his communications were not wanted, Franklin then discovered they had stolen his ideas on electricity and passed them off as their own. He vowed to have his revenge and his kite hoax was both his triumph over the silk-coat connoisseurs who then ruled over international science and a crucial tool in the success of the American Revolution and the establishment of the Republic« less