The first electric generator was a simple copper disk spinning between magnets

The dawn of the electrical age began with a copper disk and a horseshoe magnet in Michael Faraday's London laboratory. In 1831, Faraday demonstrated that rotating a conductive disk through a magnetic field induced a continuous direct current, a phenomenon known as electromagnetic induction. This 'Faraday Disk' was the world's first electromagnetic generator, producing a steady 0.3 volts when spun at approximately 30 rpm.