Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ancient Egyptian texts described electric fish in 2750 BCE as protectors of all other fish. This marks humanity's earliest recorded encounter with a force that would eventually power the modern world.
Thales of Miletus studied around 600 BCE how rubbing amber rods with cat's fur could attract light feathers. He believed this friction rendered the amber magnetic, a misconception that would persist for centuries until science proved the link between magnetism and electricity.
Benjamin Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment in June 1752 where he attached a metal key to a dampened kite string. The resulting sparks jumping from the key to his hand demonstrated that the heavens were not immune to the laws of physics.
John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain invented the first working germanium-based point-contact transistor in 1947 at Bell Labs. This invention was followed by the bipolar junction transistor in 1948 and forms the foundation of all modern circuitry.
The United States showed a 12% increase in electricity demand during each year of the first three decades of the twentieth century. This rate of growth is now being experienced by emerging economies like India and China.
The threshold for perception of mains-frequency electricity in a human body varies from 0.1 mA to 1 mA. A current as low as a microamp can be detected as an electrovibration effect.