"<a href=""https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtQGYz4f3YQ&amp;t=1m27s"">1:27</a> Dont forget about the Baghdad battery", or as some may call it the Babylon battery. But for those who don't accept the ancient battery for what it is then there is still 1744, the Leyden jar: The concept for the Leyden jar was arrived at independently by Dutchmen Musschenbroek and Cunaeus and German scientist Ewald Georg von Kleist. It was essentially a capacitor that stored a charge between two metal plates. A number of jars could be connected in parallel to form a “battery” (the term was coined by Benjamin Franklin).