In 1269 Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt experimented with magnetism and wrote "Letter on the Magnet". He used a thin iron rectangle to plot the "field" lines of a spherically shaped piece of magnetite (Lodestone), and was the first to associate a field with a force.

In 1750, John Michell (1724-1793) showed that the attraction and repulsion of magnets decrease as the squares of the distance increased.

In 1785, Charles Augustin Coulomb (1736-1806) showed that both magnetic and electric forces experienced an inverse-square dependence on distance, now called "Coulomb's law" in the case of electrostatics.

In 1820 Hans Oersted (1777-1851) was the first person to observe the link between electricity and magnetism, when he observed that the needle of a compass near a wire conducting electrical current deflected when current was flowing in the wire. He also noted that the compass needle direction depended upon the direction of the current and the intensity of deflection depended upon the amount of current.

In 1824 William Sturgeon (1783-1850)  invented the electro-magnet, and in 1832 invented the electric motor.

In 1831 Michael Faraday (1791-1867) discovered an effect inverse to that found by Oersted. Faraday discovered that moving a wire in a magnetic field created an electrical current, whereas Oersted and Sturgeon had discovered that an electric current creates a magnetic field. Faraday determined that there was a mutually-perpendicular relationship between the electrical current, magnetism and motion. For example, electricity moving west to east, through a magnetic field running north to south is deflected upwards. If the electricity is confined within a wire, the wire is deflected upwards along with the electricity. Later electricity became identified with electrical charges. In 1845 Michael Faraday discovered that light propagation in a material can be influenced by external magnetic fields

Joseph Henry (1799-1878) discovered the transformer and inductance. It is also interesting to note, that Henry had a telegraph system working several years before Samuel Morse did, and that he demonstrated the wireless transmission of electro-magnetic signals fifty years before Hertz did. In 1831, he invented the solenoid, which was the first device that used electricity to produce movement.

In 1864 James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) published his theory of the electromagnetic field.