John Dennis, a 17th-century English literary critic, had a passion for writing plays, although he wasn’t particularly successful at it. One of his plays, Appius and Virginia, required a thunder sound for a rainstorm scene. Dennis improvised by creating an instrument using a bowl and metal balls for the sound effect. Despite the play’s failure and cancellation after a few showings, the theatre manager adopted Dennis’ sound technique for a production of Macbeth. Upon realizing the familiar sound during a showing, Dennis famously exclaimed that the theatre had “stolen his thunder”. This incident spread through local papers, leading to the popularization of the phrase “to steal one’s thunder”. And that’s how this well-known expression came to be!
