Year
Event
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
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
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 Alva 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 Alva Edison invents the fuse
1893
During the Fourth International Conference of Electricians in Chicago, electrical units were defined
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
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
1925
Austrian American engineer Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented the first FET (which became popular much later)
1927
Japanese engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi increased television resolution to 100 lines, unrivaled until 1931[16]
1927
German Physicist Max Dieckmann invented Video camera tube
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[18]
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
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
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
1953
First fully transistorized computer in the U.S.
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
The first electronic device
The first electronic device ever invented is the relay, a remote switch controlled by electricity that was invented in 1835 by Joseph Henry, an American scientist, although it is also claimed that the English inventor Edward Davy "certainly invented the electric relay" in his electric telegraph c.1835.
It made modern telegraphy possible and evolved into the repeater- thus the relay- a remote controlled switch, was in effect the first ( Electronic) device, though not anything involving crystals, diodes, vacuum tubes etc.
The first invented Relay was used as part of his telegraph system circa 1844. It was used in long distance telegraph circuits, repeating the signal coming in from one circuit and re-transmitting it to another.
Since then, relays found extensive use in telephone exchanges and early computers to perform logical operations.
References and useful resources:
Who invented the first electronic component?
The first electronic device