Roy Sullivan: The Human Lightning Conductor

He was struck seven times by lightning between the years 1942 and 1977. And each time he outlived, finding his way into the Guinness World Records. Roy Sullivan from Virginia, in the United States, is nicknamed the ‘human lightning conductor’. He lost his eyebrows, and went through severe stomach and chest issues, yet was strong enough to survive each one of them!

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Born between peace and terror

Eminent physicist Albert Einstein was born in the year 1879. Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace, was born in 1869 and Adolf Hitler, the epitome of terror, in 1889. Hence the expression that Einstein was born between peace and terror.

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Origin of the electric chair

Until recently, criminals in the US were executed using an electric chair. Nowadays a different form of execution by lethal injection is practised. Before the electric chair, the condemned criminals were    hanged. However, a dentist Dr Alfred P. Southwick happened to witness a drunken man getting electrocuted and dying instantly when he touched a live electric generator. He was horrified. However, it later occurred to him that this method of electrocution could be used to humanely execute condemned criminals. As a dentist he worked using chairs, so the idea of the instrument occurred in the form of a chair.

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