Get a charge out of National Battery Day! Observed each year on February 18th, the day serves to appreciate the convenience batteries provide to our everyday lives.
- 250 BC – The “Baghdad Battery” refers to artifacts discovered near Baghdad, Iraq, dating back to around 250 BCE. These clay jars contained a copper cylinder and an iron rod, suggesting they might have been ancient galvanic cells used for electroplating or other purposes.
- 1748 – The word “battery” was used by Ben Franklin to describe multiple Leyden jars, which were considered power sources during his time. He pulled the word from the military term “battery”, which defined a group of weapons working together.
- 1798 – The first battery was created by Alessandro Volta in 1798.
- 19th Century – electric belts claimed to cure ailments using battery-generated currents. Though these devices lacked scientific credibility, they reflect the imaginative applications of early battery technology.
- 1802 – William Cruickshank from the UK invented the first electric battery capable of mass production. In other words, the general public could now have access to batteries.
- 1836 – Rechargeable batteries were invented in 1836 by an English chemist. This battery was designed with lead-acid technology and is still the type used for car batteries.
- 1859 – The first rechargeable battery was invented in 1859, when French physicist Gaston Plante invented the lead acid cell, which is still used in cars today. The lead acid cell paved the way to the creation of the NiMH, NiCd batteries and lithium ion batteries, other types of rechargeable batteries commonly used for items such as LED flashlights.
- 1898 – The founder of Eveready Battery, Conrad Hubert, invented the flashlight in 1898, aka the electric hand torch. (Eveready introduced the D-size battery for the first handheld flashlight.)
- 1896 – the National Carbon Company (later known as the Eveready Battery Company) manufactured the first commercially available battery called the Columbia.
- 1938 – Archeologists tend to argue that batteries have been around much longer though. In 1938 a discovery was made in Iraq of a 5-inch pottery jar containing a copper cylinder that encased an iron rod. It’s thought to be an ancient battery.
- 1950s – The first miniature batteries weren’t developed until the 1950s when Eveready brought them to market. This discovery forever changed how people wore and wound – or rather stopped winding – their watches.
- 1957 – watches needed to be wound routinely to keep time. Then in 1957, the Hamilton Watch Company introduced the first battery-operated watch.
- The EPA estimates Americans purchase nearly 3 billion batteries each year.
- The smallest battery in the world was created with a 3D printer, and is only the size of a grain of sand.
- Prior to the Energizer Bunny becoming famous as the face of Energizer batteries, a pink bunny was used by Duracell. Duracell forgot to renew their trademark and Energizer scooped it up.
- There is a battery-powered bell at Oxford University that has been continuously ringing for over 175 years. No one knows what the battery is composed of and no one wants to take the device apart in order to figure it out. – Source
- Disposable electronic cigarettes contain perfectly good rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. – Source
- It is optimal for your lithium-ion smartphone battery to top it off and keep its charge between 40-80%, rather than let it drain 0% and charge it all the way up. – Source
- If all new cars produced were powered by lithium batteries, the world would run out of lithium in ~30 years. – Source
- The city of Fairbanks, Alaska holds the world’s largest rechargeable battery, which powers the whole city during outages. – Source
- Keeping your laptop plugged in all the time will kill its battery faster. – Source
- Modern industry uses a lot of mercury for various items, but the largest amount of this metal element is used for battery manufacture.
- A fully charged battery takes 50 times more energy to produce than it can deliver.
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