Like one of most interesting natural phenomenons, lightning, through most parts of history, has fascinated and frightened man, kept his imagination busy, but remained unexplained until recently. Even today this effect isn` t clearly explained and demistified. Scientists still have their hands full of work to understand and explain some effects about lightning strike.

In the Antic era, in beginnings of science, and there was more gods than people in some bigger village. Almost to all nations and cultures, lightning and thunder were divine signs.
To old Greeks thunder represented one of Zeusse´s weapons which were made for him by Minerva, goddess of wisdom.
Both, Greeks and Romans observed the sky, were frightened by a thunder, as a sign of gods' bad will. To get gods trust, they adored and were afraid of them. They build their temples on the locations where the lightning stroke, which because of that were holy to them. By sharing similar believings, Astec's tried to get gods trust by sacrificing virgins. Similar customs could be found in many cultures and religions of old nations, and various superstitions remained until today. In some areas even today there are believs that the sound of church bells can make lightning strikes go away, and the Santa´s slaides are pulled by Donner (Thunder) and Blitzen (Lightning).

Turnover in examining the phenomenon of thunder has hapened in the middle of 18th century thanks to work and fascinating experiments of Benjamin Franklin. With helf of these experimants he proved that thunder is an electrical phenomenon, and he constructed a device that could protect objects and people within that device.That was surely great advance, but it needed to pass a lot of time until his ideas were accepted in science and everyday life.

Next bigger advance hapened on the end of 19th century, when scientists could for their research use fotogrphic and spectrographic devices. First man who succesfully measured electric current of thunder was german scientist Pockles. He measured strenght of magnetic field caused by thunder, and indirectly from that information calculated strenght of electric current of thunder (1897 - 1900).



Modern researches began with work of C.T.R. Wilson who first measured electric field to determine the structure of charge in clouds that participate in atmospheric discharges. With his work Wilson significantly contributed to todays understanding of thease phenomenous, and for invention of "Cloud Chamber", he was recieved Nobel's prize.
Science has furthermore advanced in small steps until until rapid advance of technology and measuring technics and instruments in 60's of 20th century. That improvement brought new possibilties of study, but also need for more efficent protection for objects and vehicles (airplanes and space shuttles), and various technical (electrotechnical) devices sensitive on high voltage which can accure as result of lightning strike.