Science · History of Electricity

First Battery: Galvani, Volta, and the Dawn of Electricity

📅 Updated 13 October 2026⚡ Voltaic pile, 1799–1800🐸 Galvani’s frogs, 1780s

Written & reviewed by Nazish Fatima · Updated October 13, 2026

In short

How Galvani's frog experiments and Volta's 1799 voltaic pile, announced on 20 March 1800, created the first battery and a steady electric current.

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A frog’s twitch changed the history of science. In the 1780s, the Bologna physician Luigi Galvani found that electricity made the legs of dead frogs kick, and decided that animals make their own electricity. His friend Alessandro Volta doubted it, and set out to prove the current came from the metals. The result was the first battery: the voltaic pile, built in 1799 and announced to the Royal Society on 20 March 1800. This timeline traces how it happened, how the pile worked, and how its descendants power the modern world, checked against Volta’s letter and recent histories.

Quick Answers At a Glance Timeline How It Worked Build a Pile Who Was Right?After Volta FAQ

💡 Short Answer

Alessandro Volta invented the first battery, the voltaic pile, in 1799 and announced it in a letter to the Royal Society dated 20 March 1800. It was a stack of silver or copper and zinc discs separated by pads soaked in salt water, and it produced a steady electric current. Volta built it to disprove Luigi Galvani’s theory, from frog experiments published in 1791, that animals generate their own electricity.

⚡ The First Battery: Quick Facts

InventorAlessandro Volta (1745–1827)

Built1799, Como and Pavia

AnnouncedLetter to Royal Society, 20 Mar 1800

MaterialsSilver or copper, zinc, brine-soaked pads

Inspired byGalvani’s frogs, De viribus (1791)

First useSplitting water, May 1800

⚡ Quick Answers — AI Overview Ready

The First Battery: Key Questions

Who invented the first battery?

Alessandro Volta, professor of physics at the University of Pavia. He built the voltaic pile in 1799 and described it to the Royal Society in a letter dated 20 March 1800. It was the first source of steady electric current.

What did Galvani have to do with it?

Galvani’s frog experiments, published in 1791, convinced him that animals make electricity. Volta tested the idea, concluded the current came from two different metals, and built a device that made electricity with no animal at all.

How did the voltaic pile work?

Pairs of zinc and copper or silver discs were stacked with salt-water pads between them. Zinc reacts and releases electrons, which flow through a connecting wire to the other metal. Each pair adds roughly 0.7 to 1 volt.

Who was right, Galvani or Volta?

Both, in part. Volta was right that metals and a wet conductor create a current, the basis of batteries. Galvani was right that nerves and muscles work by electrical signals, the basis of electrophysiology.

📚 Key Takeaways

The Birth of the Battery in Nine Points

The spark: Galvani saw frog legs twitch under electrical stimulation in Bologna in the 1780s.
The theory: his 1791 book argued animals carry their own “animal electricity”.
The challenge: from 1792 Volta argued the current came from two different metals.
The invention: Volta’s pile of 1799, silver or copper and zinc with brine pads, gave a steady current.
The announcement: a letter to Sir Joseph Banks dated 20 March 1800, read in London on 26 June.
Instant impact: Nicholson and Carlisle split water by electrolysis within weeks.
New elements: Davy used batteries to isolate potassium and sodium in 1807.
Both right, both wrong: Galvani founded electrophysiology; Volta, electrochemistry.
Legacy: the volt is named after Volta, and every battery since uses his principle.

At a Glance: The Birth of the Battery

From the Leyden jar to Ørsted’s compass. Scroll the table sideways on a phone.

Date	Milestone	Why it mattered
1745–46	Leyden jar invented	Stored static charge, one spark at a time
1780s	Galvani’s frog experiments, Bologna	Electricity makes muscles contract
1791	Galvani publishes De viribus	Theory of animal electricity
1792	Volta challenges Galvani	Two different metals create the effect
1794	Galvani’s metal-free contraction	Tissue carries electrical signals
1799	Volta builds the pile	First steady electric current
20 Mar 1800	Volta’s letter to the Royal Society	Announces the battery
May 1800	Nicholson and Carlisle split water	First electrolysis
1807	Davy isolates potassium and sodium	Batteries discover new elements
1820	Ørsted’s compass needle	Current and magnetism linked

Before the Battery: Electricity Without a Steady Supply

By the mid-18th century, experimenters could make static electricity with friction machines, glass globes or discs rubbed as they turned, and store it in a Leyden jar. A jar could knock a person off their feet, light spirits or kill a small animal, but it gave one discharge and then had to be charged again by hand.

That made careful, repeatable experiments on electricity in motion almost impossible. What science lacked was a source that would keep supplying a current for minutes or hours. The clue that led to one came, unexpectedly, from anatomy.

The Timeline, Newest First

From the 2026 bicentenary back to the Leyden jar.

2026–27

Volta’s bicentenary and a second look at the debate 2026

200VOLTeVOLTA programme, Como, Pavia, Milan, 2026200th anniversary of Volta’s death: 5 Mar 2027IEEE Spectrum, Sept 2026

Lombardy is marking the 200th anniversary of Volta’s death with 200VOLTeVOLTA, a programme of exhibitions, lectures and school projects in Como, Pavia, Milan and Bologna that runs through 2026, ahead of the anniversary itself on 5 March 2027. Como’s Festival of Light ran from 24 September to 2 October 2026.

Why it matters: the anniversary has prompted a fresh look at the old story. In the September 2026 issue of IEEE Spectrum, historian Allison Marsh argues that Galvani and Volta were each partly right and partly wrong, and that the usual telling, with Volta as winner, misses how their dispute founded two sciences: electrophysiology and electrochemistry.

The Tempio Voltiano on the lakefront in Como, built in 1927 for the centenary of Volta’s death. Krzysztof Golik, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Oct
2019

A Nobel Prize for the lithium-ion battery Legacy

Announced 9 Oct 2019ChemistryWhittingham, Goodenough, Yoshino

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to M. Stanley Whittingham, John B. Goodenough and Akira Yoshino for developing the lithium-ion battery. Whittingham made the first working lithium battery in the 1970s; Goodenough doubled its voltage with a cobalt oxide cathode in 1980; Yoshino replaced reactive lithium metal with a carbon anode in 1985, making it safe to sell.

Why it matters: the prize recognised the descendant of Volta’s pile that powers phones, laptops and electric cars. Goodenough, 97 at the time, became the oldest Nobel laureate.

1991

Sony sells the first lithium-ion battery Breakthrough

Commercial launch, JapanRechargeableBuilt on Yoshino’s 1985 design

Sony began selling rechargeable lithium-ion cells, first used in a camcorder. They were lighter and stored far more energy than nickel-cadmium cells of the same size, and they did not suffer the same “memory” loss of capacity.

Why it matters: the lithium-ion cell made mobile phones, laptops and, later, long-range electric vehicles practical. It still uses Volta’s basic arrangement: two electrodes and an electrolyte.

1881

The volt becomes an international unit Legacy

International Electrical Congress, ParisVolt, ohm and ampere adopted

Delegates at the first International Electrical Congress in Paris agreed on a common set of electrical units, including the volt for electrical potential, named after Volta, and the ampere, named after André-Marie Ampère. British engineers had proposed the name in the 1860s.

Why it matters: every battery, plug and power line in the world is now rated in volts.

1836–
1886

Better cells: Daniell, Planté, Leclanché Breakthrough

Daniell cell 1836Lead-acid (Planté) 1859Leclanché cell 1866Gassner dry cell 1886

Volta’s pile faded within hours as hydrogen bubbles built up on its plates. In 1836 the British chemist John Frederic Daniell separated the two metals into different solutions, giving a steady voltage that made the cell the workhorse of the electric telegraph. In 1859 Gaston Planté made the first rechargeable battery, from lead plates in sulphuric acid. Georges Leclanché’s zinc-carbon cell of 1866 became, as a sealed paste “dry cell” patented by Carl Gassner in 1886, the ancestor of the torch battery.

Why it matters: each design fixed a weakness of the pile: unsteady output, no recharging, liquid that spilled.

Daniell cell batteries of the 1836 design at the National Museum of American History, Washington. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

1820–
1831

Current reveals electromagnetism Breakthrough

Ørsted, Apr–Jul 1820Ampère, Sept 1820Faraday, induction, Aug 1831

In 1820 the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted saw that a wire carrying current from a battery moved a nearby compass needle, the first evidence that electricity and magnetism are linked. André-Marie Ampère worked out the forces between currents within weeks. In 1831 Michael Faraday showed the reverse: a moving magnet induces a current, the principle of the generator.

Why it matters: none of these experiments was possible with static electricity alone; all needed the steady current that batteries supplied. Faraday kept a pile that Volta had given him in 1814.

1807

Davy isolates potassium and sodium Breakthrough

Royal Institution, LondonPotassium and sodium 1807Calcium, barium, strontium, magnesium 1808

Humphry Davy passed the current from large voltaic batteries through molten potash and soda and obtained two new metals, potassium and sodium. The next year he isolated calcium, barium, strontium and magnesium the same way.

Why it matters: the battery became a tool for discovering elements, and electrolysis became a branch of chemistry. Davy’s assistant, from 1813, was the young Michael Faraday.

Nov
1801

Volta demonstrates the pile in Paris Breakthrough

Institut de FranceNapoleon Bonaparte, First Consul, attendsGold medal

Invited to Paris, Volta demonstrated the pile at the Institut de France over several sessions in November 1801, with Napoleon Bonaparte in attendance. The Institut awarded him a gold medal, and Napoleon later made him a count and a senator of the Kingdom of Italy.

Why it matters: official recognition from the leading scientific body of the age confirmed the pile as the discovery of its day, and spread it quickly across Europe’s laboratories.

Giuseppe Bertini’s painting of Volta demonstrating the pile to Napoleon Bonaparte in Paris in 1801. Giuseppe Bertini, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

May
1800

Nicholson and Carlisle split water Breakthrough

LondonAbout six weeks after Volta’s letterFirst electrolysis

Banks showed Volta’s letter to friends before it was read in public. William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle built a pile of their own and, at the start of May 1800, noticed gas bubbling where the wires touched water. Collecting it, they found hydrogen at one wire and oxygen at the other.

Why it matters: it was the first time electricity had been used to drive a chemical reaction, the process now called electrolysis. It also hinted that the pile itself worked by chemistry, not, as Volta believed, by contact between metals alone.

20 Mar
1800

Volta writes to the Royal Society Breakthrough

Letter to Sir Joseph Banks, in FrenchRead in London 26 Jun 1800Published in Philosophical Transactions, vol. 90

From Como, Volta wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, describing what he called an “artificial electric organ”. He gave two designs: a column of discs, and a crown of cups, a ring of glasses of salt water joined by metal strips. The letter was read to the Society on 26 June 1800 and printed as “On the Electricity excited by the mere Contact of conducting Substances of different Kinds”.

Why it matters: it is the founding document of the battery. Volta’s explanation, that contact between metals created the electricity, turned out to be incomplete; the chemistry in the wet layers does the work.

Volta compared his pile to the electric organ of the torpedo ray, a natural “battery” that had fascinated both him and Galvani.

1799

The voltaic pile is built Breakthrough

Como and PaviaSilver or copper with zincSalt water or weak acid in cardboard or cloth

Between 1794 and 1799 Volta tested combinations of metals and wet conductors. The answer was a stack: a disc of silver or copper, a disc of zinc, a pad soaked in brine, then the same again, dozens of times. Touching the top and bottom gave a shock, and, unlike a Leyden jar, the shock could be felt again and again without recharging.

Why it matters: for the first time, scientists had a source of continuous electric current. Every battery since descends from this stack.

A voltaic pile preserved at the Tempio Voltiano in Como: metal discs and pads stacked between glass rods. Dario Crespi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dec
1798

Galvani dies in Bologna Debate

4 Dec 1798Removed from his chair after refusing an oath to the Cisalpine Republic

When French-backed forces created the Cisalpine Republic, Galvani refused to swear the oath of loyalty required of university staff and lost his professorship in Bologna. He died on 4 December 1798, aged 61, still convinced animal electricity was real.

Why it matters: Volta did not announce the pile, the device that seemed to settle their argument, until after his friend and rival had died.

1794

Galvani makes a frog twitch without metal Debate

Dell’uso e dell’attività dell’arco conduttore, published anonymouslyVolta wins the Copley Medal

Answering Volta, Galvani (writing anonymously) described an experiment in which a frog’s leg contracted when its own nerve touched its muscle, with no metal in the circuit at all. That pointed to electricity inside the tissue. The same year, the Royal Society gave Volta its Copley Medal for his work on Galvani’s experiments.

Why it matters: both men had a piece of the truth. Volta was right that metals could create a current; Galvani was right that nerves and muscles carry electrical signals.

1792

Volta challenges animal electricity Debate

University of PaviaRepeats Galvani’s experiments“Metallic” or contact electricity

Volta, professor of physics at Pavia, first accepted Galvani’s idea. Repeating the experiments in 1792, he found the twitch was strongest when two different metals touched the nerve and muscle. He concluded that the frog was only a very sensitive detector, an electroscope, and that the electricity came from the metals.

Why it matters: by shifting attention from the frog to the materials, Volta set himself on the path to a device that could make electricity with no animal at all.

Alessandro Volta, professor of physics at the University of Pavia, in an 1837 engraving — Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), professor of physics at the University of Pavia, in an 1837 engraving. Gaetano Bonatti, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

1791

Galvani publishes De viribus Breakthrough

Bologna Academy of SciencesCommentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion

After more than a decade of experiments, Galvani published De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius. It described frog legs contracting when touched by sparks from an electrostatic machine, during thunderstorms, and when a brass hook in the spinal cord touched an iron surface.

Why it matters: Galvani argued that the frog was itself a store of animal electricity, like a living Leyden jar. The book was read across Europe and, within months, was being tested by Volta.

A plate from Galvani’s 1791 De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius — A plate from Galvani’s 1791 *De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius*: frog legs wired to an electrostatic machine and a Leyden jar. Luigi Galvani, 1791, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

1780s

Frog legs twitch in Bologna Debate

University of BolognaElectrostatic machine and Leyden jarAssisted by his wife, Lucia Galeazzi

Galvani, a physician and anatomist, studied how dissected frogs’ muscles responded to electricity. He noticed that a leg kicked when a scalpel touched its nerve while a nearby electrostatic machine sparked, and later that legs hung by brass hooks twitched against an iron railing even with no machine running.

Why it matters: the observations raised a question nobody could yet answer: was the electricity coming from the animal, or from the metal touching it?

Luigi Galvani, physician and anatomist at the University of Bologna — Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), physician and anatomist at the University of Bologna. Unidentified painter, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

1745–46

Before the battery: the Leyden jar

Ewald von Kleist and Pieter van MusschenbroekStores static chargeOne spark at a time

The Leyden jar, a glass jar coated with metal foil, could store static charge from a friction machine and release it in a single powerful spark. It made electricity a sensation in 18th-century salons and laboratories, and Galvani used one in his frog experiments.

Why it matters: a jar gives one discharge and must be recharged. Science lacked a steady current, the gap Volta’s pile would fill.

Most of the history of the battery came after Volta; the first 55 years of electrical science had no steady current at all.

How the First Battery Worked

A simplified look at the chemistry Volta did not yet understand.

Volta’s stack, layer by layer. Each copper, zinc and wet-pad set is one cell; stacking cells adds their voltages.

Every cell in the pile has three parts: two different metals and a liquid that conducts electricity. Zinc reacts with the salt water or acid and gives up electrons; it becomes the negative terminal. The copper or silver becomes the positive terminal, where hydrogen forms from the liquid. Joining the two ends with a wire lets the electrons flow through it, and stacking cells adds their voltages like steps on a staircase.

Volta himself thought the electricity came from the contact between the two metals. Chemists soon showed that the energy came from the reactions in the wet layers, which is why the zinc slowly dissolved and the pads dried or fouled. It took until the mid-19th century for the chemical explanation to win outright.

How to Build a Voltaic Pile in Five Steps

Cut the discs: Prepare equal numbers of discs of two different metals, such as copper or silver and zinc.
Soak the separators: Cut pads of cardboard, leather or cloth and soak them in salt water or weak acid.
Stack one cell: Lay a copper disc, a zinc disc and a wet pad on top of each other.
Repeat the stack: Repeat the same order many times; each set adds roughly 0.7 to 1 volt.
Close the circuit: Join the top and bottom of the column with a wire to make a current flow.

⚡ Interactive: Build Volta’s Pile

How many discs would you need?

Choose how many zinc-copper pairs to stack and what to soak the pads in. The estimate uses typical values; real piles varied.

Disc pairsPads soaked in

Estimated voltage

Stack height (approx.)

Leyden Jar vs Voltaic Pile

	Leyden jar (1745)	Voltaic pile (1799)
What it does	Stores static charge	Generates electricity
Source of energy	Friction machine, charged by hand	Chemical reactions in the stack
Output	One brief, high-voltage spark	Steady, low-voltage current
After use	Must be recharged	Keeps working until the zinc or pads give out
Modern relative	Capacitor	Battery

The People Behind the First Battery

Bologna, 1737–1798

Luigi Galvani

Physician and anatomist whose frog experiments launched the debate. His name lives on in “galvanise” and the galvanometer.

Como, 1745–1827

Alessandro Volta

Physics professor at Pavia; improved the electrophorus, identified methane and built the pile. The volt is named after him.

Bologna

Lucia Galeazzi Galvani

Galvani’s wife, daughter of his anatomy teacher, who took part in his laboratory work until her death in 1788.

London

Sir Joseph Banks

President of the Royal Society, who received Volta’s letter and shared it before it was read in June 1800.

London, 1800

Nicholson and Carlisle

William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle used a home-built pile to split water, discovering electrolysis.

London, 1807

Humphry Davy

Used giant batteries at the Royal Institution to isolate potassium, sodium and four more elements.

Bologna and London

Giovanni Aldini

Galvani’s nephew, who toured Europe shocking animal and human corpses with piles to defend his uncle’s ideas.

Copenhagen, 1820

Hans Christian Ørsted

Used a battery to show that an electric current moves a compass needle, linking electricity and magnetism.

Galvani vs Volta: Who Was Right?

The story is often told with a winner and a loser. Modern science is more generous.

Question	Galvani	Volta
Born / died	1737–1798, Bologna	1745–1827, Como
Profession	Physician, anatomist, Bologna	Professor of physics, Pavia
Key work	De viribus, 1791	Letter to the Royal Society, 1800
Source of the electricity	The animal itself	Contact between different metals
What science kept	Nerves and muscles use electrical signals	Two electrodes and an electrolyte make a cell
Field founded	Electrophysiology	Electrochemistry and battery science
Named after him	Galvanise, galvanometer, galvanic cell	The volt, voltage, voltaic pile

⚖️ Interactive: Galvani vs Volta, Who Was Right?

Pick a claim

The verdict of modern science on each side of the argument.

Volta won the argument in his lifetime. The pile seemed to prove that metals, not frogs, made the electricity, and Galvani died before it was announced. But Galvani’s 1794 experiment, in which a frog’s nerve touching its own muscle produced a twitch with no metal involved, was the first evidence that living tissue generates electrical signals. In the 1840s Carlo Matteucci and Emil du Bois-Reymond measured those signals directly, and today the electrocardiogram and the brain scan rest on the field Galvani started.

“It contains one of the most beautiful and surprising discoveries and the germ of many others.”

Alessandro Volta on Galvani’s work, writing in 1816, as quoted by IEEE Spectrum

The Long Road From Volta’s Pile to Modern Batteries

The battery was not perfected in a single moment.

Year	Battery	Inventor	What it fixed or added
1799	Voltaic pile	Alessandro Volta	First continuous current
1836	Daniell cell	John Frederic Daniell	Steady voltage; powered the telegraph
1859	Lead-acid	Gaston Planté	First rechargeable battery
1866	Leclanché cell	Georges Leclanché	Cheap zinc-carbon cell for doorbells and telegraphs
1886	Dry cell	Carl Gassner	Sealed paste; portable
1899	Nickel-cadmium	Waldemar Jungner	Rugged rechargeable
1991	Lithium-ion (commercial)	Whittingham, Goodenough, Yoshino; sold by Sony	Light, high energy, rechargeable

Early piles gave out within hours, their liquid dried or leaked, and they were heavy. Each later design solved one problem: Daniell’s cell gave a steady voltage, Planté’s lead-acid battery could be recharged, Gassner’s dry cell could be carried in a pocket, and lithium-ion packed far more energy into a small, rechargeable cell. What none of them changed is the principle Volta demonstrated: two different electrode materials and an electrolyte turn chemical energy into electrical energy.

Why the First Battery Still Matters

Pocket

Phones and laptops

Rechargeable lithium-ion cells, the direct descendants of the pile, power portable computing.

Road

Electric vehicles

Packs of thousands of cells, wired in series and parallel much as Volta stacked his discs.

Grid

Energy storage

Large batteries store solar and wind power and balance electricity supply and demand.

Body

Medicine

Pacemakers run on batteries and work on nerves and muscle: both halves of the Galvani-Volta story at once.

Common Myths About the First Battery

Ancient

“The Baghdad battery came first”

No evidence these ancient jars were ever used for electricity; most archaeologists think they held scrolls.

Materials

“Volta used only zinc and copper”

His 1800 letter names silver, or copper or brass, with zinc or tin. Zinc-copper became the common pair later.

Science

“Galvani was simply wrong”

He was right that nerves and muscles use electrical signals; his theory of stored animal electricity was the error.

Word

“Volta coined the word battery”

“Battery” was already used for linked Leyden jars, a term often credited to Benjamin Franklin in the 1740s.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who invented the first battery?

Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist at the University of Pavia. He built the voltaic pile in 1799 and described it in a letter to the Royal Society dated 20 March 1800. It was the first device to produce a steady electric current from a chemical reaction, which is why it is counted as the first electric battery.

When was the first battery invented?

Volta built his pile in 1799 and announced it in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, dated 20 March 1800. The letter was read to the Society on 26 June 1800 and published in Philosophical Transactions later that year, so both 1799 and 1800 appear in textbooks.

What was Luigi Galvani’s role in the invention of the battery?

Galvani, a physician in Bologna, showed that electricity made the muscles of dissected frogs contract and argued in 1791 that animals carry their own animal electricity. Volta set out to test that idea. His conclusion, that the current came from two different metals touching a moist conductor, led him to the pile.

What was the voltaic pile made of?

A column of alternating metal discs with pads of cardboard, leather or cloth soaked in salt water or weak acid between each pair. Volta’s 1800 letter names silver, or copper or brass, paired with zinc, or tin; zinc and copper became the usual combination. Each pair plus its wet pad formed one cell.

How did the first battery work?

Zinc reacts with the electrolyte and gives up electrons, so it becomes the negative terminal; the other metal becomes the positive one. When a wire joins the top and bottom of the stack, electrons flow through it from zinc to copper or silver. Stacking many pairs adds their voltages together.

How much voltage did Volta’s pile produce?

Each zinc-copper pair gives very roughly 0.7 to 1 volt, depending on the electrolyte and the state of the metals. A pile of 20 pairs therefore gave something in the order of 15 to 20 volts, enough for a strong shock when wet hands touched both ends, but at a low current.

How was the voltaic pile different from a Leyden jar?

A Leyden jar, invented in 1745-46, stores static charge and releases it in a single spark. The pile makes its own electricity through chemical reactions and keeps supplying a steady current for as long as the reactions continue. That steady flow made controlled experiments on current possible for the first time.

Was Galvani wrong about animal electricity?

Partly. Volta was right that the metals in Galvani’s set-up could create the current themselves. But Galvani was right that nerves and muscles work by electrical signals; his 1794 experiments made a frog muscle contract without any metal at all. Modern electrophysiology grew from his work.

Did Galvani and Volta know each other?

Yes. They corresponded and respected each other’s work. Volta at first accepted animal electricity, then turned against it from 1792. Their argument was carried on through papers and letters, and Volta did not announce the pile until after Galvani’s death in December 1798.

Why is the unit of voltage called the volt?

It honours Alessandro Volta. The name was proposed by British engineers in the 1860s, and the volt was adopted as an international unit, alongside the ohm and the ampere, at the International Electrical Congress in Paris in 1881.

What was the first use of the battery?

Chemistry. In May 1800, about six weeks after Volta’s letter, William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle in London used a pile to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, the first electrolysis. Within a decade Humphry Davy used much larger batteries to isolate potassium, sodium and other elements.

Did Volta show his battery to Napoleon?

Yes. In late 1801 Volta demonstrated the pile at the Institut de France in Paris with Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, in attendance. Napoleon awarded him a gold medal and later made him a count of the Kingdom of Italy. Giuseppe Bertini painted the scene in the 19th century.

Where can you see Volta’s original battery?

Volta’s instruments, including piles, are kept at the Tempio Voltiano, a museum in his home town of Como, Italy. A pile Volta gave to Michael Faraday in 1814 is on display in the Faraday Museum at the Royal Institution in London, and the University of Pavia holds others.

Was the Baghdad battery the first battery?

There is no evidence that it was. The clay jars with copper cylinders and iron rods found near Baghdad in the 1930s can produce a small voltage if filled with an acid, but no wires, electrical devices or texts show they were ever used that way. Most archaeologists think they stored scrolls.

What was wrong with the first batteries?

Volta’s pile gave out within hours. Hydrogen bubbles coated the positive plates and weakened the current, the zinc corroded, and in tall stacks the weight of the discs squeezed the liquid out of the pads. Later designs such as the Daniell cell of 1836 were built to solve these problems.

What was the first rechargeable battery?

The lead-acid battery, invented by the French physicist Gaston Planté in 1859. Its lead plates in sulphuric acid could be recharged by passing a current backwards through them. Improved versions from the 1880s became the car batteries still used today.

When were dry cell batteries invented?

Georges Leclanché’s zinc-carbon wet cell of 1866 was turned into a sealed dry cell in the 1880s; Carl Gassner patented a widely used version in 1886. Making the electrolyte a paste meant a battery could be carried and used in any position, the ancestor of the AA cell.

Who invented the lithium-ion battery?

Three scientists shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for it: M. Stanley Whittingham, who made the first lithium battery in the 1970s; John B. Goodenough, who added a cobalt oxide cathode in 1980; and Akira Yoshino, who built the first commercially viable design in 1985. Sony sold the first lithium-ion cells in 1991.

Is a modern battery the same as Volta’s pile?

The principle is the same: two different electrode materials and an electrolyte turn chemical energy into electrical energy. Almost everything else has changed, including the chemistry, sealed cases, rechargeability and energy density. A smartphone cell stores far more energy in a far smaller space than any pile.

What is galvanism and how is it linked to Frankenstein?

Galvanism was the 19th-century name for electricity produced by chemical action, and for its effects on muscles. Galvani’s nephew Giovanni Aldini used voltaic piles to make the bodies of executed criminals twitch in public shows, including in London in 1803. Mary Shelley later cited galvanism as an inspiration for Frankenstein.

When did Volta die and when is his bicentenary?

Alessandro Volta died in Como on 5 March 1827, aged 82. The 200th anniversary of his death falls on 5 March 2027. Como, Pavia, Milan and other cities are marking it with a programme of exhibitions, lectures and events called 200VOLTeVOLTA, running through 2026.

Why was Volta’s battery so important?

It gave scientists their first steady supply of electric current. That led directly to electrochemistry, the discovery of new elements, Oersted’s 1820 finding that current moves a compass needle, and the electric motors, telegraphs and generators that followed. Every battery since works on the principle Volta demonstrated.

Conclusion: A Frog’s Twitch That Changed Electrical History

The first battery began with a simple question: where did the electricity that made a frog’s leg twitch actually come from? Galvani’s answer founded the study of electricity in living things. Volta’s answer gave the world a steady electric current, announced in 1800, which within a generation had split water, revealed new elements and exposed the link between electricity and magnetism. The pile was small and short-lived. Its descendants now power phones, cars and grids, and as Volta’s bicentenary approaches in March 2027, both men’s parts in the story are getting their due.

Sources & further reading

Every dated entry above was checked against these references. Last reviewed 13 October 2026.