The History of Electricity

"The invention of electricity dates back to 600 BC when Thales of Miletus wrote about the charging of amber on rubbing it. This was, what we now call as the static electricity.
In 1600, William Gilbert first translated the Greek word ‘amber’ to the word ‘electricity’ in English. He, for the first time used this word.
Otto von Guericke invented a machine that produced static electricity in 1660.
In 1675, Robert Boyle observed electric forces of attraction and repulsion transmitted through vacuum.
Stephen Gray’s discovery of the conduction of electricity in 1729, gave a new dimension to the idea of electricity.
1733 was the year when Charles Francois du Fay found out that electricity comes in two forms. He called them, resinous (-) and vitreous (+). They were later renamed as negative and positive, by Benjamin Franklin and Ebenezer Kinnersley.
In 1745, Pieter van Musschenbroek invented the Leyden jar. A Leyden jar stored static electricity, which could be discharged at once.
One of the major discoveries in the history of electricity, was that of 'Electromagnetic Induction'. It led to the comprehension of how electric currents work.
In 1747 William Watson showed how a Leyden jar could be discharged through a circuit. The understanding of the terms 'current' and 'circuit' proved to be a breakthrough to further experimentation.
On June 15, 1752, Benjamin Franklin, promoted his theory, that lightening was electrical, through his experiment of flying a kite during lightening. In appreciation of his work with electricity, Franklin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and was honored with Copley Medal in 1753.
Michael Faraday discovered that moving a magnet inside a wire coil could make electricity. He was then able to build the first electric motor. He later built a generator and a transformer. This has become his valuable contribution to the field of electromagnetism.
Henry Cavendish of England, Coulomb of France, and Luigi Galvani, an Italian physician contributed towards devising practical uses of electricity.
The concept of conductivity relates to the ability of a substance to carry an electrical current. Henry Cavendish, in 1747, started measuring the conductivity of various materials and published his results.
Coulomb mathematically articulated the attraction between electrified bodies. This laid the foundation of quantitative study of electricity.
Back in 1786, Luigi Galvani established what we now recognize to be the electrical basis of nerve impulses. Galvani demonstrated the twitching of frog muscles by jerking them with a spark from an electrostatic machine.
Girolamo Cardano from Italy, perhaps for the first time distinguished between electrical and magnetic forces through his writings.
Volta discovered that chemical reactions could be used to create cathodes and anodes. The difference of electric potentials between them could lead to the flow of a current between them. The unit of potential difference has been named as 'volt' in his honor.
Writing on electricity cannot complete without the mention of Thomas Edison, who boasts of his long lasting discovery of an electric bulb".