The first known use of kites for weather purposes was at the village of Camlachie near Glasgow, in 1749, by Alexander Wilson. His objective was to obtain temperature measurements from well above the surface of the earth, and he did so by flying a string of half a dozen kites, to each of which a thermometer was attached by a slow-burning taper; as each thermometer fell to the ground, it was read quickly to obtain information about the temperature regime above.
The most famous kite experiment took place near Philadelphia three years later. On a cloudy day in 1752, when thunderstorms seemed likely, Benjamin Franklin launched one on a silken thread, near the end of which he attached a metal key.
In due course a thunderstorm developed, and as the thread became wet and the lightning flashes started, sparks jumped from Franklin's hand to the metal key. Franklin thus satisfied himself that lightning was electrical in nature - a most momentous discovery at the time.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Franklin's experiment, however, was the fact that he survived it. Although he was unaware of it, his was a foolhardy exercise, since wet kite strings provide an excellent path for lightning strokes.
Several people were killed in the years that followed, trying to repeat the demonstration, and some of Franklin's less scrupulous successors liked to show how dogs and other animals could be electrocuted by attaching them to the wires of kites flown in thundery conditions.
The last known human fatal incident involving kites and meteorology, however, occurred 78 years ago today at Ellendale in North Dakota.
In the early years this century, there was a revival in the use of kites by meteorologists for taking measurement in the upper atmosphere. The kites would be strung out at intervals of a mile or so along a length of steel piano wire, and by this means it became possible to raise instruments to heights of up to 20,000 ft above the ground.
The practice gradually died out as the potential of the radio-sonde was realised, but it continued at the observatory at Ellendale until the early 1920s.
On August 28th 1919, kite observations were in progress when a thunderstorm was seen approaching and the observers began reeling in the string of kites. One had already been removed, and the reeling-in resumed, when lightning struck the topmost kite and surged earthwards down the wire.
Charles Heckelsmilter, a 19-year-old observer standing near the wire, was knocked to the ground and died without regaining consciousness, despite strenuous efforts by his colleagues to revive him.