Hampton History Museum

Ahoy! Our FREE Blackbeard Pirate Festival Weekend includes staff-led tours of the galleries exploring key points in Hampton's past. The tours leave from the lobby on the hour 11 am-3 pm on Saturday, June 13 & 1-4 pm on Sunday, June 14. Museum hours are 9 am-5 pm & 1-5 pm, respectively. You are welcome to drop in anytime. Be sure to view our special HamptonVA 250 commemorative exhibit "Revolutionary Hampton: Journeys of Liberty" on our second floor. We look forward to seeing you!

120 Old Hampton Lane, Downtown Hampton
www.hamptonhistorymuseum.org 757-727-1102

Hampton, VA - Gov Visit Hampton, Virginia!

We look forward to welcoming you with FREE admission and tours this weekend. Check out all there is to see, do, and experience during the Blackbeard Pirate Festival! See you soon!

Today in Hampton History
2008 - Phenix Hall is damaged by fire. The building, on the campus of Hampton University, was the home of George P. Phenix High School from 1932 to 1962. The fire was limited to the exterior of the building.

Image: Phenix High School at the Hampton Institute https://www.phenixhighstory.org/

Find more Phenix history in the Museum’s collections online:
https://hampton.catalogaccess.com/search?search=Phenix&includedFields=Objects%2CPhotos%2CLibrary%2CArchives%2CPeople&page=1&size=10&withImages=false

Today in Hampton History
1920 - The Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory is dedicated at Langley Field. The event celebrated the lab’s completion of its atmospheric wind tunnel, dynamometer lab, and support facilities. The dedication also solidified Langley as the home of NACA (National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the precursor to NASA). The dedication ceremony included a 25-plane flyover led by Brig. Gen. “Billy” Mitchell.

Images of Atmospheric Wind Tunnel/Tunnel One: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/atmospheric-wind-tunnel-1

http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/NACA_Tunnel_One

When the movement for American independence began, the men who led it were unknown outside the colonies. With one exception. Benjamin Franklin was seventy years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence and by then he was already world famous.

A self-made man, Franklin had earned a fortune as a printer/publisher. His international reputation was secured by his work as a scientist and inventor.

Dr. Franklin, as he was usually called, was admitted to London’s Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (now the Royal Society of the Arts) in 1756. By the time the American Revolution began, he was regarded as one of the world’s leading scientists and intellectuals.

Franklin invented bifocals, lightning rods, and the Franklin stove. As a scientist, he is probably best remembered for his famous kite experiment.

Franklin believed thunderstorms generated electricity. To prove his hypothesis, Franklin attached to a string of h**p twine to a kite. At the end of the string, he attached a house key and a Leyden jar, which collected and stored electricity. Then he tied a silk cord to the end of the h**p string and affixed a piece of wire to the kite, to act as a lightning rod.

On a stormy day, he and his son William stood under a shed in a field outside Philadelphia and launched the kite. Franklin believed the wire on the kite would attract electricity from the storm, then conduct it down the wet h**p string. He made sure the silk cord at the end stayed dry, so that it would act as an insulator. As the scientist Joseph Priestly wrote, “Dr. Franklin, astonishing as it must have appeared, contrived actually to bring lightning from the heavens, by means of an electrical kite, which he raised when a storm of thunder was perceived to be coming on.”

With the kite dancing amid the thunderclouds, Franklin noticed the loose threads on the h**p string were standing erect. He moved his hand near the key got the shocking result he had hoped for. Franklin’s Leyden jar, in Priestly’s words ““collected electric fire very copiously.”

Franklin’s experimentation led to his invention of lightning rods and in 1753 the Royal Society awarded him the prestigious Copley Award, honoring him for his “curious experiments and observations on electricity.”

Franklin’s fame and reputation as a scientist and intellectual contributed greatly to his credibility and prestige in Europe, which in turn contributed to the success of his efforts on behalf of the United States while serving an American minister to France, where he was instrumental in negotiating the treaty of alliance with France that was crucial to the success of the American cause.

Benjamin Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment on June 10, 1752, two hundred seventy-four years ago today.

Of course, the experiment was very dangerous. Do not try it yourselves.