[Karen W. (OP)]

So who discovered and harnessed electricity first?

[Chemistry4me]

Alessandro Volta? He constructed the voltaic pile, which later became known as the electric battery.

[Don_1]

Dr. Frakenstein

[Pumblechook]

 In Baghdad between 250 BC and AD 224.   Baghdad battery.

 

[Karen W. (OP)]

So who discovered and harnessed electricity first?

So more then one discovery of electro I assume there are no specifics eh?

Alessandro Volta? He constructed the voltaic pile, which later became known as the electric battery.

Thanks C4M..I will check him out also... thats worth looking into.... Checl out the below Bagdad battery!

Dr. Frakenstein

Dr. Who?...LOL

In Baghdad between 250 BC and AD 224.   Baghdad battery.

 

Thanks Pumblechook.. Looks like that may predate Alessandro Volta?



Baghdad Battery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

The Baghdad Battery, sometimes referred to as the Parthian Battery, is the common name for a number of artifacts created in Mesopotamia, possibly during the Parthian or Sassanid period (the early centuries AD). These jars were probably discovered in 1936 in the village of Khuyut Rabbou'a, near Baghdad, Iraq. These artifacts came to wider attention in 1938 when Wilhelm König, the German director of the National Museum of Iraq, found the objects in the museum's collections. In 1940, König published a paper speculating that they may have been galvanic cells, perhaps used for electroplating gold onto silver objects.[1] This interpretation continues to be considered as at least a hypothetical possibility. If correct, the artifacts would predate Alessandro Volta's 1800 invention of the electrochemical cell by more than a millennium.

[Pumblechook]

William Gilbert, also known as Gilberd, (24 May 1544 – 30 November 1603) was an English physician and natural philosopher. He was an early Copernican, and passionately rejected both the prevailing Aristotelian philosophy and the Scholastic method of university teaching. He is remembered today largely for his book De Magnete (1601), and is credited as one of the originators of the term electricity. He is regarded by some as the father of electrical engineering or electricity.