| Year | Event |
|---|
| 600 BCE | Ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus described static electricity by rubbing fur on substances such as amber. |
| 1600 | English scientist William Gilbert coined the word electricus after careful experiments. He also explained the magnetism of Earth. |
| 1660 | German scientist Otto von Guericke invented a device that creates static electricity. This is the first ever electric generator. |
| 1705 | English scientist Francis Hauksbee made a glass ball that glowed when spun and rubbed with the hand |
| 1720 | English scientist Stephen Gray made the distinction between insulators and conductors. |
| 1745 | German physicist Ewald Georg von Kleist and Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek invented Leyden jars. |
| 1752 | American scientist Benjamin Franklin showed that lightning was electrical by flying a kite and explained how Leyden jars work. |
| 1780 | Italian scientist Luigi Galvani discovered Galvanic action in living tissue. |
| 1785 | French physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb formulated and published Coulomb's law in his paper Premier Mémoire sur l’Électricité et le Magnétisme. |
| 1785 | French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace developed the Laplace transform to transform a linear differential equation into an algebraic equation. Later, his transform became a tool in circuit analysis. |
| 1800 | Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the battery. |
| 1804 | Thomas Young: Wave theory of light, Vision and color theory |
| 1808 | Atomic theory by John Dalton |
| 1816 | English inventor Francis Ronalds built the first working electric telegraph. |
| 1820 | Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted accidentally discovered that an electric field creates a magnetic field. |
| 1820 | One week after Ørsted's discovery, French physicist André-Marie Ampère published his law. He also proposed the right-hand screw rule. |
| 1821 | German scientist Thomas Johann Seebeck discovered thermoelectricity. |
| 1825 | English physicist William Sturgeon developed the first electromagnet. |
| 1827 | German physicist Georg Ohm introduced the concept of electrical resistance. |
| 1831 | English physicist Michael Faraday published the law of induction (Joseph Henry developed the same law independently). |
| 1831 | American scientist Joseph Henry in the United States developed a prototype DC motor. |
| 1832 | French instrument maker Hippolyte Pixii in France developed a prototype DC generator. |
| 1833 | Michael Faraday developed the laws of electrolysis. |
| 1833 | Michael Faraday invented the thermistor |
| 1833 | English physicist Samuel Hunter Christie invented the Wheatstone bridge (It is named after Charles Wheatstone who popularized it). |
| 1836 | Irish priest (and later scientist) Nicholas Callan invented the transformer in Ireland. |
| 1837 | English scientist Edward Davy invented the electric relay. |
| 1839 | French scientist Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect. |
| 1844 | American inventor Samuel Morse developed telegraphy and the Morse code. |
| 1844 | Woolrich Generator, the earliest electrical generator used in an industrial process. [3] |
| 1845 | German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff developed the two laws now known as Kirchhoff's Circuit laws. |
| 1850 | Belgian engineer Floris Nollet invented (and patented) a practical AC generator. |
| 1851 | Heinrich Daniel Ruhmkorff developed the first coil, which he patented in 1851 |
| 1855 | First utilization of AC (in electrotherapy) by French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne. |
| 1856 | Belgian engineer Charles Bourseul proposed telephony. |
| 1856 | First electrically powered lighthouse in England |
| 1860 | German scientist Johann Philipp Reis invented the microphone. |
| 1862 | Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell published the four equations bearing his name. |
| 1866 | The Transatlantic telegraph cable |
| 1873 | Belgian engineer Zenobe Gramme who developed the DC generator accidentally discovered that a DC generator also works as a DC motor during an exhibit in Vienna. |
| 1876 | Paper capacitor manufacturing started. |
| 1876 | Russian engineer Pavel Yablochkov invented the electric carbon arc lamp. |
| 1876 | Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. |
| 1877 | American inventor Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. |
| 1877 | German industrialist Werner von Siemens developed a primitive loudspeaker. |
| 1878 | First electric street lighting in Paris, France |
| 1878 | First hydroelectric plant in Cragside, England |
| 1878 | William Crookes invents the Crookes tube, a prototype of Vacuum tubes |
| 1878 | English engineer Joseph Swan invented the Incandescent light bulb. |
| 1879 | American physicist Edwin Herbert Hall discovered the Hall Effect. |
| 1879 | Thomas Edison introduced a long-lasting filament for the incandescent lamp. |
| 1880 | French physicists Pierre Curie and Jacques Curie discovered Piezoelectricity. |
| 1882 | First thermal power stations in London and New York |
| 1887 | German American inventor Emile Berliner invented the gramophone record. |
| 1888 | German physicist Heinrich Hertz proves the existence of electromagnetic waves, including what would come to be called radio waves |
| 1888 | Italian physicist and electrical engineer Galileo Ferraris publishes a paper on the induction motor, and Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla gets a US patent on the same device [4] [5] |
| 1890 | Thomas Edison invents the fuse |
| 1893 | During the Fourth International Conference of Electricians in Chicago, electrical units were defined |
| 1893 | English physicist J. J. Thomson invented waveguides. |
| 1894 | Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi begins developing the first radio wave based wireless telegraphy communication system [6] [7] |
| 1895 | Indian physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose conducts experiments in extremely high frequency millimetre waves using a semiconductor junction to detect radio waves [8] [9] |
| 1895 | In a series of field experiments, Marconi finds that he could transmit radio waves at much greater range than the half-mile maximum physicist of the time were predicting, achieving ranges up to 2 miles (3.2 km) and transmitting over hills [10] [11] |
| 1895 | Russian physicist Alexander Popov finds a use for radio waves, building a radio receiver that can detect lightning strikes [12] |
| 1895 | Discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen |
| 1896 | Electrolytic capacitor patent was granted to Charles Pollak. |
| 1897 | German inventor Karl Ferdinand Braun invented cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO). |
| 1901 | First transatlantic radio transmission by Guglielmo Marconi |
| 1901 | American engineer Peter Cooper Hewitt invented the Fluorescent lamp. |
| 1904 | English engineer John Ambrose Fleming invented the diode. |
| 1906 | American inventor Lee de Forest invented the triode. |
| 1908 | Scottish engineer Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, laid out the principles of television. |
| 1909 | Mica capacitor was invented by William Dubilier. |
| 1911 | Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered Superconductivity. |
| 1912 | American engineer Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the electronic oscillator. |
| 1915 | French physicist Paul Langevin and Russian engineer Constantin Chilowsky invented sonar. |
| 1917 | American engineer Alexander M. Nicholson invented the crystal oscillator. |
| 1918 | French physicist Henri Abraham and Eugene Bloch invented the multivibrator. |
| 1919 | Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the standard AM radio receiver. |
| 1921 | Metre Convention was extended to include the electrical units. |
| 1921 | Edith Clarke invents the "Clarke calculator", a graphical calculator for solving line equations involving hyperbolic function, allowing electrical engineers to simplify calculations for inductance and capacity in power transmission lines [13] |
| 1924 | Japanese engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi began a research program on electronic television. [14] |
| 1925 | Austrian American engineer Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented the first FET (which became popular much later). [15] [16] |
| 1926 | Yagi–Uda antenna was developed by the Japanese engineers Hidetsugu Yagi and Shintaro Uda. |
| 1926 | Japanese engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated CRT television with 40-line resolution, [17] the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver. [14] |
| 1927 | Japanese engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi increased television resolution to 100 lines, unrivaled until 1931. [18] |
| 1927 | American engineer Harold Stephen Black invented negative feedback amplifier. |
| 1927 | German Physicist Max Dieckmann invented video camera tube. |
| 1928 | Raman scattering discovered by Indian physicist C. V. Raman and Indian physicist Kariamanickam Srinivasa Krishnan, [19] providing basis for later Raman laser |
| 1928 | Japanese engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi was the first to transmit human faces in half-tones on television, influencing the later work of Vladimir K. Zworykin [20] |
| 1928 | First experimental Television broadcast in the U.S. |
| 1929 | First public TV broadcast in Germany |
| 1931 | First wind energy plant in the Soviet Union |
| 1934 | Akira Nakashima, Claude Shannon and Viktor Shetakov switching circuit theory lays the foundation for digital electronics [21] |
| 1936 | Dudley E. Foster and Stuart William Seeley developed the FM detector circuit. |
| 1936 | Austrian engineer Paul Eisler invented the printed circuit board. |
| 1936 | Scottish Scientist Robert Watson-Watt developed the radar concept which was proposed earlier. |
| 1938 | Russian-American engineer Vladimir K. Zworykin developed the iconoscope. |
| 1939 | Edwin Howard Armstrong developed the FM radio receiver. |
| 1939 | Russell and Sigurd Varian developed the first Klystron tube in the US. |
| 1941 | German engineer Konrad Zuse developed the first programmable computer in Berlin. |
| 1944 | Scottish Engineer John Logie Baird developed the first color picture tube. |
| 1945 | Transatlantic telephone cable |
| 1948 | First transistor: Bipolar junction transistor (BJT) by american engineers John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain together with their group leader William Shockley |
| 1948 | Hungarian-British physicist Dennis Gabor invented holography. |
| 1950s | Solid electrolyte tantalum capacitor was invented by Bell Laboratories. |
| 1950 | French physicist Alfred Kastler invented the MASER. |
| 1951 | First nuclear power plant in the US |
| 1952 | Japanese engineer Jun-ichi Nishizawa invented the avalanche photodiode [22] |
| 1953 | First fully transistorized computer by Bell Labs (U.S.): TRADIC |
| 1959 | First working discrete MOSFET: p-MOSFET by Bell Labs |
| 1958 | American engineer Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit (IC). |
| 1960 | American engineer Theodore Maiman develops the first laser |
| 1962 | Nick Holonyak invented the LED. |
| 1963 | First home Videocassette recorder (VCR) |
| 1963 | Electronic calculator |
| 1966 | Fiber-optic communication by Kao and Hockham |
| 2008 | American scientist R. Stanley Williams invented the memristor which was proposed by Leon O. Chua in 1971. |