Volta's Electric Pile

1800

Alessandro Volta stacked discs of zinc and copper separated by brine-soaked cloth and drew from them a steady, unnatural current - the first battery. Reported to London's Royal Society, his pile handed chemists and physicists a tool that would crack water into its elements and remake the century. Napoleon, fascinated, summoned Volta to Paris, awarded him a medal, and declared the invention the foundation of a new science.