It has been known since ancient times that two pieces of amber would repel each other after being rubbed with silk and that glass treated in the same manner attracted electrified amber.

Thales of Miletus, writing about 600 BC, tells us that the Ancient Greeks found that rubbing fur on substances such as amber would cause an attraction between the two. They also noticed that the amber attracted light objects such as fluff and hair and that, if they rubbed the amber for long enough, they could produce a spark.

William Gilbert (1544-1603), physician to Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and James I (1685-1688), investigated magnetism and electricity. In 1600, he published his De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure (On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on That Great Magnet the Earth) describing his experiments. It was Gilbert who coined the modern Latin word electricus from from the Greek word for amber, elektron which soon became the English electric and electricity.

Gilbert's interest in magnetism was spurred by the needs of Elizabethan navigators.

Gilbert's work was followed by Otto von Guericke (1602�1686) who devised an early electrostatic generator by applying friction in 1660 and Robert Boyle (1627-91) determined that electrical attraction and repulsion continued to act across a vacuum in 1675.

In 1729, Stephen Gray (1666-1736) classified materials as conductors and insulators and CF Du Fay first identified the two types of electric charge which would later be called positive and negative.

The Leyden jar (a type of capacitor for storing electric charge in large quantities) was invented by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1745 and, experimenting with the Leyden jar two years later, William Watson discovered that a discharge of static electricity was equivalent to an electric current.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) performed his famous but extremely dangerous experiment of flying a kite during a thunderstorm in June 1752. He established the link between lightning and electricity and invented the lightning rod.

It was either Franklin or Ebenezer Kinnersley of Philadelphia who estalished the convention of positive and negative charge.

Although the phenomenon of electricity was known for millenia, the effect was not investigated quantitavely until the experiments of Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736-1806).

Coulomb discovered that electrically charged bodies obey laws of force similar to those discovered for gravity by Isaac Newton, i.e.; they attract or repel each other in directly as the product of the quantity of electricity with which they are charged and in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between them.

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1600		English physician and scientist publishes his De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure describing his experiments on electricity and magnetism
1603.Dec.10		Death of Engish physician and scientist William Gilbert (1544-)
1675		Robert Boyle determined that electrical attraction and repulsion continues to act across a vacuum
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1729		Stephen Gray first classified materials as conductors and insulators
1729		CF Du Fay first identified positive and negative electric charges
1745		Pieter van Musschenbroek invented the Leyden jar for storing an electrical charge at Leyden University
1747		William Watson discovered that a discharge of static electricity was equivalent to an electric current using the recently invented Leyden jar
1752.Jun		Benjamin Franklin performed his famous experiment of flying a kite during a thunderstorm
1806.Aug.23		Death of the French scientist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736-)

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