Science
The first battery was built to win an argument about frog legs
In 1800, Alessandro Volta stacked discs of zinc and silver separated by brine-soaked cloth and produced a steady electric current: the first battery. He built it to disprove rival Luigi Galvani's claim that electricity was a special "animal" force generated only by living tissue. The voltaic pile gave scientists continuous, on-demand electric current for the first time.