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The history of electromagnetic theory begins with ancient measures to understand atmospheric electricity, in particular lightning.^[1] People then had little understanding of electricity, and were unable to explain the phenomena.^[2] Scientific understanding into the nature of electricity grew throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the work of researchers such as André-Marie Ampère, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, Michael Faraday, Carl Friedrich Gauss and James Clerk Maxwell.

In the 19th century it had become clear that electricity and magnetism were related, and their theories were unified: wherever charges are in motion electric current results, and magnetism is due to electric current.^[3] The source for electric field is electric charge, whereas that for magnetic field is electric current (charges in motion).

^ Bruno Kolbe, Francis ed Legge, Joseph Skellon, tr., "An Introduction to Electricity". Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1908. 429 pages. Page 391. (cf. "[...] high poles covered with copper plates and with gilded tops were erected 'to break the stones coming from on high'. J. Dümichen, Baugeschichte des Dendera-Tempels, Strassburg, 1877")
^ Urbanitzky, A. v., & Wormell, R. (1886). Electricity in the service of man: a popular and practical treatise on the applications of electricity in modern life. London: Cassell &.
^ Lyons, T. A. (1901). A treatise on electromagnetic phenomena, and on the compass and its deviations aboard ship. Mathematical, theoretical, and practical. New York: J. Wiley & Sons.