Electrifying Moments in History

electricity

Isn’t electricity wonderful? It provides your heat, light, and the many things that make modern life more entertaining and convenient. If we asked you which items (not living things) you could not live without, many of you would say your phone, your microwave, your computer, your coffee pot, or something else that serves you. All of those things run on the power of electricity.

So, today we celebrate this power that gives us power to do so much, by bringing you several electrifying moments in history.

1752. Benjamin Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment that led to greater, though incomplete, understanding of electricity and how to harness the power that people had witnessed and wondered about since ancient times.

1831. Michael Faraday discovered the principle of electrical induction, proving that he could create electric current with magnets and copper wires.

1880. Thomas Edison, after more than a decade of experimentation, patented the incandescent lightbulb. Edison’s contribution has been disputed, of course, as several other scientists contributed to the invention of the lightbulb.

1882. General Electric was founded and the first substation was opened in Manhattan, through the efforts of Edison and the funding of J.P. Morgan. Ten years later, Samuel Insull came along to the industry and created the modern power grid.

1893. The Chicago World’s Fair was lit with a quarter million lights, using the ideas and work of Nikola Tesla.

1965. On November 9, a faulty relay at Niagra Falls led to the tripping of a 230-kilovolt-transmission line which caused a power surge that caused a 13-hour blackout in New York City and trapped 800,000 people on the subways. Thirty million people in 6 states and 2 Canadian provinces were in the dark.

1991. Branham Electric was founded in St. Louis, to serve the area in residential and multifamily construction.

1998. Branham Electric began a round-the-clock service division to service the electrical needs of industrial, commercial and residential customers.

2003. The Northeast U.S. and Canada again experienced a massive blackout, impacting all of southeast Canada and eight states. Fifty million people were in the dark for two days. The incident, caused by overgrown trees coming in contact with a high-voltage line, prompted the creation of a joint task force to minimize blackouts.

2008. Branham Electric opened our Energy Division, focusing on energy solutions that reduce energy consumption, provide excellent ROI, and put money back in the pocket of the business owner.

2013. Super Bowl XLVII will forever be remembered as the night the lights went out in New Orleans. In the third quarter, sensing equipment detected an abnormality in the electrical system, shutting down power and interrupting play for about 34 minutes.

We hope that you found these tidbits of information electrifying and enlightening! Branham Electric brings you nearly 200 years of combined electrical experience to meet all your electrical installation, maintenance, and service needs.

Additional sources for historical facts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5


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