The first batteries in the storage of energy sense of the word, not the row of artillery pieces sense of the word.

We're invented in the late 18th century, though inventors like Benjamin Franklin were fiddling

with capacitors well before then, and those types of devices are themselves quite interesting.

I did a deep dive into capacitors in episode 151 of the show, if you're curious to learn more.

But for the purposes of this episode, what's important to know is that there are technologies

that have been around for a while that utilize and store energy in different ways.

And the versions that stored electrical energy in particular began to come of age in the

1700s, culminating with the first true battery,

the voltaic pile, which was invented by Alessandro Volta in the year 1800. Practical batteries,

which could actually be used for things, rather than mostly just demonstrating up till then

theoretical concepts, were developed in the mid-19th century.

In 1836, a battery called the Daniel cell was invented by John Frederick Daniel,

and that battery, which had an operating voltage of about 1.1 volts,

quickly became the industry standard for devices requiring electricity,

including the new-fangled

telegraph networks that were weaving their way around the world at the time. Over the next

several decades, many clever permutations of the same general concept were developed, all of which

were inferior in some ways and superior in others, until in 1859 the lead acid battery was invented,

which was remarkable because it could be recharged rather than being permanently drained

when all the available chemical reactions were expended.

A higher performing, easier-to-mass-produce model of this battery type was invented in 1881,

and in the 1930s, the liquid inside many lead-acid batteries was replaced with a gel,

...