Italian physician, physicist, biologist Luigi Galvani was born #OTD in 1737.
In 1780, Galvani discovered that the muscles of dead frogs' legs twitched when struck by an electrical spark. Galvani's report of his investigations were mentioned specifically by Mary Shelley as part of the summer reading list leading up to an ad hoc ghost story contest on a rainy day in Switzerland—and the resultant novel Frankenstein—and its reanimated construct.