Topsy the elephant was electrocuted at Luna Park Zoo on Coney Island in 1903. Captured on film by Thomas Edison, the event was one of a string of animal electrocutions Edison staged to discredit a new form of electricity: alternating current.

__1903:__Thomas Edison stages his highly publicized electrocution of an elephant in order to demonstrate the dangers of alternating current, which, if it posed any immediate danger at all, was to Edison's own direct current.

Edison had established direct current at the standard for electricity distribution and was living large off the patent royalties, royalties he was in no mood to lose when George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla showed up with alternating current.

Edison's aggressive campaign to discredit the new current took the macabre form of a series of animal electrocutions using AC (a killing process he referred to snidely as getting "Westinghoused"). Stray dogs and cats were the most easily obtained, but he also zapped a few cattle and horses.

Edison got his big chance, though, when the Luna Park Zoo at Coney Island decided that Topsy, a cranky female elephant who had squashed three handlers in three years (including one idiot who tried feeding her a lighted cigarette), had to go.

Park officials originally considered hanging Topsy but the SPCA objected on humanitarian grounds, so someone suggesting having the pachyderm "ride the lightning," a practice that had been used in the American penal system since 1890 to dispatch the condemned. Edison was happy to oblige.

I don't believe I ever remember hearing that he was frying animals .lol.

Life was a lot different back then, folks.  Don't judge the past based upon your present. 

Life was a lot different back then

Yep. That Exactly.
Though I'm not sure why they wouldn't have just shot it. I would assume shotguns existed back then? Or maybe they only had the old muzzle-loader guns?

These days it'd be more likely to go to a refuge, but you never know they also might go in, all guns blazing, as soon as it attacked the handler.

My teachers used to compare me to T. E. Because I was interested in technology at early ages. Honestly Edison is just a piece of (...) though.

My teachers used to compare me to T. E. Because I was interested in technology at early ages. Honestly Edison is just a piece of (...) though.

Mine did too lol. When I was in 2nd grade or so I loved to draw diagrams for ridiculous machines like a device that could keep the bubbles in a bubble bath from going away or a built-in toaster for a car (maybe inspired by Wallace and Grommit). I had a whole notebook full of sketches that I had from like 2nd to 5th grade but sadly it disappeared years ago and is probably long gone.