History of electricity

Thales, a Greek, found that when amber was rubbed with silk it attracted feathers and other light objects. He had discovered static electricity.

William Gilbert, scientist and physician to Queen Elizabeth I, invented the term electricity (from the Greek word for amber, elecktra). He was the first person to describe the earth's magnetic field and to realise that there is a relationship between magnetism and electricity.

Benjamin Franklin, famous U.S. politician, flew a kite with a metal tip into a thunderstorm to prove that lightning is a form of electricity. He was very lucky he wasn't killed. Don't try this at home!

At an exhibition in New York, Samuel Morse demonstrated sending 10 words a minute by his new telegraph machine. He used a system of dots and dashes, which later became standard throughout the world, known as Morse code.

Charles Parsons built his first turbine. This is a type of engine which is operated by jets of high pressure gases. This type of engine was later developed to drive the propellers of boats, including the Titanic.

The German phsyicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered invisible rays that made a distant screen glow and passed through objects. These were X-rays.

Guglielmo Marconi sends a radio message from The Isle of Wight to Poole (20 miles away). Later he sends a message across the Atlantic.

Mains powered radios, vacuum cleaners, irons and fridges were becoming part of every household.

The UK decided to develop advanced gas cooled reactors to succeed the earlier Magnox stations. Around the same time, France and the USA decided to adopt water cooled reactor technology.

The world's first commercial wave power station on the Scottish island of Islay began to generate electricity. Devices are placed on the shoreline or out at sea that use wave motion to compress air to drive a turbine or hydraulic pumps. The station is called LIMPET (Land-Installed Marine-Powered Energy Transformer) and can provide enough electricity for about 400 homes.