Although the ancient Greeks and probably earlier peoples knew about magnetism and static electricity, not much was accomplished with these interesting phenomena until the Chinese began to use the magnetic compass for navigation around 1000 ce. Some of the basic laws of magnets were written down in 1269 and William Gilbert studied both static electricity and magnetism at the end of the 16th century. Then the subject was ignored by most scientists for a long time.

In the 18th century, Stephen Grey and Charles François Du Fay revived the study of static electricity, but it was not until Pieter van Musschenbroek received the first powerful electric shock (apart from those caused by lightning) in 1745 that the subject gained attention. Van Musschenbroek was one of the inventors of the... Read On........http://www.answers.com/topic/electricity-and-magnetism

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