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Thales of Miletus discovered that a piece of amber can pick up pieces of straw when is rubbed with fur. -
William Gilbert named "electrics" the materials that display the attractive properties of amber and attract objects besides straw. -
Thomas Browne coined the word "electricity" to describe the properties of electric objects. -
Charles du Fay discovered that almost any object can be turned electric and that there are two distinct groups of electrics: two objects from the same group repel while a pair of one from each group attract. -
Benjamin Franklin supposed the existence of a substance that he called "the electrical fluid" common to all things. According to Franklin an object with an excess of this fluid is positively charged and something lacking this fluid is negatively charged. -
The lightning rod was discovered by Benjamin Franklin. -
Electrolysis was discovered accidentally by William Nicholson -
Ohm's law is a mathematical formula that describes the correlation of electrical quantities as they vary. -
Maxwell's equations are a system of four equations. -
Thomas Edison in 1880 registered his patent for the incandescent electric light bulb in the United States. -
Joseph John Thomson named electrons the small particles that form the electrical fluid.