| Electricity has fascinated human kind since our ancestors first witnessed lightning. In ancient Greece, Thales observed that an electric charge could be generated by rubbing amber, for which the Greek word is electron. |
| 1650 | The German physicist Otto von Guericke experimented with generating electricity in 1650. |
| 1729 | The English physicist Stephen Gray discovered electrical conductivity in 1729. |
| 1752 | Benjamin Franklin proposes the notion of positive and negative charge, conserving a balance except when a deficit is brought about by some means. His famous kite experiments, identifying lightning as a form of electrical discharge, take place in 1752. |
| 1800 | |
| 1827 | In 1827, using equipment of his own creation, Georg Simon Ohm determined that the current that flows through a wire is proportional to its cross sectional area and inversely proportional to its length or Ohm's law. These fundamental relationships are of such great importance, that they represent the true beginning of electrical circuit analysis |
| 1831 | Michael Faraday experimentally characterizes magnetic induction. The most thorough of early electrical investigators, he formulates the quantitative laws of electolysis, the principles of electric motors and transformers, investigates diamagnetic materials, and posits a physical reality for the indirectly observed magnetic and electrical lines of force. |
| 1876 | On April 24, 1877 Charles F. Brush was issued U.S. Patent No. 189,997 for his arc lighting system. There were other arc lamps before Brush's that utilized electromagnets as part of a regulation system but it was the combination of the electromagnet with the ring clutch that made Brush's design superior in regulating the arc. |
| 1879 | Thomas Alva Edison invented the lightbulb, and houses, shops, factories, schools, streets, ballparks -- every place you could think of, indoors and out -- could at last be easily illuminated after dark. |
| 1881 | Louis Latimer and fellow inventor Joseph V. Nichols received a patent for their invention of the first incandescent light bulb with carbon filament. Prior to this breakthrough, filaments had been made from paper. |
| 1885 | During his development of the braking and signaling systems, in the mid 1880s, George Westinghouse became quite interested in electricity. He began pursuing the technology of alternating current and he associated with those who were developing AC devices. |
| 1886 | On March 20, 1886, William Stanley demonstrated a system of high voltage transmission via a "parallel connected transformer." The device, combined with high-voltage transmission lines, made it possible to spread electric service over a wide area and allowed alternating current to be available at different voltages. |
| 1888 | Heinrich Hertz discovers and measures the waves, radio waves, predicted earlier by Faraday and Maxwell. |
| 1888 | Nikola Tesla invents the first practicable AC motor and polyphase power transmission system,. Westinghouse acquired exclusive rights to Nikola Tesla's patent for the polyphase system and lured Tesla to join the electric company and continue his work on the AC motor he had developed. |
| 1888 | Oliver B. Shallenberger (1860 -1898), a graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy, Shallenberger left the Navy in 1884 to join the Westinghouse company. In 1888 he invented an induction meter for measuring alternating current, a critical element in the Westinghouse AC system. |
| 1901 | Elihu Thomson, electrical engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur, was an innovator in electrification in both a technical and corporate sense. Thomson acquired nearly 700 patents in his career, his major contributions included (electrostatic motors, electrical meters, high-pressure steam engines, dynamos, generators and, X-rays). |
| 1902 | Although a flashlight is a relatively simple device, its invention did not occur until the late 19th century because it depended upon the earlier invention of the electric battery and electric light bulb. Conrad Hubert received a US patent in 1903, number 737,107 issued August 26, for a flashlight with an on/off switch in the now familiar cylindrical casing containing lamp and batteries. |
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