Batterys have actually been around a lot longer than you'd think. The first practical battery was probably developed by Count Alessandro Volta, an Italian scientist, in the late 1790's. Volta's invention became known as a voltaic pile. It consisted of a stack of pairs of silver and zinc disks. The pairs were separated from one another by disks of cardboard moistened with a salt solution.
In 1836, John F. Daniell, an English chemist, introduced a more efficient primary cell. The Daniell cell had two liquid electrolytes and produced a steadier current than Volta's device. In 1859, the French physicist Gaston Plante invented the first secondary battery, the lead-acid storage battery. During the 1860's, another French scientist, Georges Leclanche, invented a type of primary cell from which the modern dry cell was developed.
Through the years, scientists have designed smaller but increasingly powerful batteries for the growing number of portable electric devices. For example, a lithium cell is so tiny that it is often called a button battery. But it produces voltages higher than any other single cell. It uses lithium metal as the negative electrode and any one of several oxidizing agents as the positive electrode. Lithium cells are used mainly in calculators, cameras, pacemakers, and watches.