Long before any knowledge of electricity existed people were aware of shocks from electric fish.

Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BC referred to these fish as the "Thunderer of the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish. Electric fish were again reported millennia later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians.[2] Several ancient writers, such as Pliny the Elder andScribonius Largus, attested to the numbing effect of electric shocks delivered by catfish and torpedo rays, and knew that such shocks could travel along conducting objects.[3] Patients suffering from ailments such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them.[4] Possibly the earliest and nearest approach to the discovery of the identity of lightning, and electricity from any other source, is to be attributed to the Arabs, who before the 15th century had the Arabic word for lightning (raad) applied to the electric ray.[5] Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia until 1600, when the English scientist William Gilbert made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber.[6] He coined the New Latin word electricus ("of amber" or "like amber", from [elektron], the Greek word for "amber") to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being [9] rubbed. This association gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646

The word comes from the Greek elektron("amber"); the Greeks discovered that amber rubbed with fur attracted light objects such as feathers. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_was_electricity_discovered#ixzz1i5gbH8Yd Micheal Faraday discovered the relationship between magnetic fields and electricity traveling in a wire. This led to the brilliant work of Tesla. He is the father of modern electricity. He invented the shaded pole electric motor. Still the heart of most systems today at the house or factory. Others shaped the finer details. In 1752, Franklin is said to have performed the famous experiment of flying a kite during a thunderstorm, to which led to the discovery that lightning and electricity were somehow related. Modern scientists know this to be something of a tall tale, since being hit by lightning would have been fatal. It's likely that Franklin was actually insulated, away from the path of lightning.

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The history accounts of electricity actually date back to a thousand years or more. This may point to the Ancient Greeks who were said to have discovered an attraction between fur and amber when rubbed together. In 1600, there was a certain English physician by the name of William Gilbert who actually made a very important contribution to the history of electricity. Gilbert was the one who conned and first used the word, electric. This was taken the Greek word, elektron which actually pertains to that particular force that some substances produce or exert when they are rubbed against one another. It was in the year 1752 when Benjamin Franklins experiment was performed, it was known that Franklin was flying a kite when there was a thunderstorm going on outdoors when electricity got discovered. The discovery was somehow focused on electricity and lightning being related somehow. Some of the modern scientists think that the experiment done then is just a tall tale since they argue that when a person gets hit by lightning, the results may be fatal. After that, the scientist continued to make other experiments and observations on other phenomena that was related to electricity like Alessandro Volta was known to have created the voltaic pile which was known later to be the electric battery in the year 1800. Michael Farraday invented the electric dynamoand Thomas Alva Edison who was known for the invention of the light bulb. 1. http://www.whodiscoveredit.com/who-discovered-electricity.html 2. http://autolabscopediagnostics.com/electron.htm 3.a. http://www.blurtit.com/q501152.html b. the same c. http://www.tutorvista.com/content/physics/physics-ii/electricity/heating-effect.php d. http://www.wisc-online.com/Objects/ViewObject.aspx?ID=DCE702 e.the same ention of the electromagnet, but his brilliant mind took earlier experiments still further. If electricity could produce magnetism, why couldn't magnetism produce electricity. In 1831, Faraday found the soluti