On this day in 1752, Mason, Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in a thunderstorm and collects a charge of electricity in a levden jar when the kite is struck by lightning. He also invented the lightning rod used to protect buildings and ships from lightning effects when struck.

The continental Congress on this day in 1776 appointed a committee to write a declaration of Independence. The committee persuaded Thomas Jefferson (Non-Mason) to write it. It was later given to Benjamin Franklin (Mason) and John Adams (Non-Mason). This document was later signed: Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, the following were known to be members of a Masonic lodge: Elbridge Gerry, William Hooper, Richard Stockton, Matthew Thornton, George Walton, William Whipple.

The following named Signers have been referred to as members of the Fraternity by various Masonic writers, and in Masonic publications, but their Lodge affiliation is not known:
Roger Sherman, Josiah Bartlett, Philip Livingston, Joseph Hewes. Robert Treat Paine, Thomas McKean, John Penn, Lyman Hall, William Ellery, Thomas Nelson, Jr.,

On this day in 1864, at the battle of Brice’s Crossroads in Mississippi, confederate General and Mason Nathan Bedford Forrest defeated the numerically superior union Troops in the War between the States.

On this Day in 1905 Japan and Russia agree to peace talks brokered by Mason and President Theodore Roosevelt.