Those Red Balls on Power Lines Have a Deep Meaning – And They’ve Saved Countless Lives

Learning History

But we’ll give you a hint: it has something to do with what those electrical wires transport. That’s right, electricity! Actually, the ability to illuminate our cities and houses is a comparatively new phenomenon. Engineers Oskar von Miller and Marcel Deprez did not transport electricity over a large distance until 1882.

The duo used overhead wires normally used to send telegraphs to send a 2.5-kilowatt current over a 35-mile span. Although this may not sound far now, it was groundbreaking at the time given the conditions.