Question: @ Ciaran who invented electricity

Ciarán O'Brien answered on 13 Nov 2014:

Electricity was always around, there were plenty of lightning storms before there was any life on earth.

The Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus (lived between 624-546 B.CE.) is the first person we know who recorded generating electricity by rubbing wool off bits of amber, generating static electricity like when you rub a balloon on your hair and it sticks to surfaces (the word electricity comes from the Greek word for amber). That was about as far as our knowledge went until around the 1600s until William Gilbert published a bit book on the link between electricity and magnetism. This inspired others to start researching it, and the first electric generator was built in 1660 by Otto von Guericke. You could argue that any one of these guys invented it. Or rather, discovered it.

From there a whole load of people made their own discoveries about electricity, like positive and negative charges, how different materials conduct current, and all the rest. But most people knew what electricity was by then, and it was all just figuring out ways of making it do useful things like the telephone, light bulbs, and transistors.