I'll take a shot at explaining this to Smoblikat
Even before Ben Franklin, plenty of people were playing the electrical phenomena. Yet, the electron wasn't discovered until 1897. So, while we might think of the unit of charge as being an electron, it's actually the Coulomb, which is a crap load of electrons. It would be like purchasing a baking ingredient called eggs, but the base unit was a dozen, and it wasn't discovered for another century that there were 12 things inside of it.
Now, as an analogy, I'm going to use water. And, one unit of water is going to be a kilogram of water. If you lift water from height A to height B, it takes some work to move it up. And, it gains some potential energy - it now has the ability to do a certain amount of work (turn a water wheel, for instance). So, we could say that there's a certain amount of energy available per kilogram of water. Energy is measured in joules. From point A to point B, you have n amount of joules per kilogram of water.
Now instead, let's do this with things that have charge. If you've ever played with things that are charged, you might notice that sometimes they're attracted to each other, and sometimes repelled from each other. It's similar to how opposite poles of magnets attract each other, and like poles of a magnet repel each other. Let's assume we have to charged balls, one positive, and one negative. They're attracted to each other. We'll pick a point A near the positive ball, and a point B farther away from the positive ball. We're going to push the negative ball from point A to point B. That takes some work. And, when we push them apart, they want to fly back toward one another again. So, they've gained some "potential energy" from point A to point B. Or, we could call it a potential difference. From point B, to point A, there's a certain amount of energy available to do work for us. And, the greater the charges, the stronger their attraction to one another. So, we'll measure the amount of energy available per unit of charge, or the joules per coulomb. This is very similar to the joules per kilogram of water in the analogy. Oh, and there's a shorter name for joules per coulomb: volts. Potential difference as I referred to it is often called voltage.
Let's go back to the water analogy. When water flows, we call it current. In the upper Niagara River, so many kilograms of water flow past a point per second. Thus, we could measure current as kilograms per second. (Of course, with water, we can use other units - gallons of water per second, cubic feet per second, etc., but these could, if necessary, be converted to kg/second.) And, in the upper Niagara, those kilograms of water have the potential to do some work for you, because they're raised above point A by the height of Niagara Falls. So, as those kilograms of water flow toward the Falls, we know there there is so many joules of energy per kilogram associated with them. If 1 million kilograms were flowing over the falls per second, and each kilogram was able to do 4 joules of work turning that water wheel, then we'd have 4 million joules of energy per second from those kilograms of water going over the Falls.
Likewise, in your electrical circuit, you have so many coulombs of electrons flowing past a wire per second. This is also called current, measured in coulombs per second. The shortened name for coulombs per second is amperes, or amps for short. And, each of those coulombs has an amount of energy associated with it - so many joules per coulomb (volts) as I described above. Instead of a waterwheel at the base of a falls, those electrons are pushed through a light bulb. Let's say 4 amps, that is, 4 coulombs per second is the current, and the energy per coulomb (voltage) is 20 joules per coulomb, then each second, there are 80 joules of energy making light and heat for you. 80 joules per second is a unit of power, and is commonly called a watt.
Parallel circuits - at Niagara Falls, the river forks. Some goes over the Canadian side, some goes over the American side. Thus, the current is split up. But it falls the same distance. Thus, voltage (joules per coulomb) is the same on each side, but the current is split in two until after the two branches come together in the Niagara gorge.
Series circuits - this would be like a series of waterfalls - drop 50 feet, then 30 feet, then 20 feet. One stream that doesn't split up. The current is the same at each drop (as long as no other streams merge in.) The potential difference (joules per kilogram of water) between the highest point of elevation and the lowest point of elevation is broken up in that series of drops. Thus, it drops a certain amount of energy per kilogram over the first falls, then another amount of energy per kilogram over the second falls, and then another amount of energy per kilogram over the third falls. This would be the same amount of energy had there only been one taller falls. Ditto for electrical series circuit. So many volts (joules per coulomb) over the first "falls" etc. (Oh, and one possible point of confusion - I neglected to make the water turn a water wheel every time. So, instead of doing work like grinding your flour, you might think the energy per kilogram magically vanishes. What it actually does is heats up the water when it impacts the water below, though the measured temperature may actually be lower at the base of the falls due to evaporation as it falls.)
I've neglected to discuss electrical fields, since you didn't ask; but hopefully this gives you at least a beginning understanding. Others, feel free to critique; as this is similar to how I introduce it to students. (Though, I haven't proof-read the above; I was enjoying my dinner as I typed.)