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Timothy J. Jorgensen

Timothy J. Jorgensen is a professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is author of the award-winning book Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation (Princeton, 2016), and the newly published Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life (Princeton, 2021). He lives in Rockville, MD.

Franklin believed a turkey killed with electricity would be tastier than one dispatched by conventional means: decapitation.

When Benjamin Franklin Shocked Himself While Attempting to Electrocute a Turkey

The statesman was embarrassed by the mishap—no doubt a murder most fowl