The story behind the discovery of magnets is that magnets were discovered accidentally by a Greek shepherd named Magnes, who lived in Magnesia, Greece. Magnus was herding his sheep through the mountains. Suddenly he noticed the ferrule of his stick and nails in his sandals got stuck to a rock. The iron in his stick and nails had become attracted to the magnetic rock. The stone was named as magnetite, after the name of the shepherd or the country it was found in. It was also known as a loadstone because of its attractive properties.
Magnetite is one of the three naturally occurring oxides of iron. It gets attracted to magnets and can be easily magnetized to form a permanent magnet. Naturally magnetized pieces of magnetite are called loadstone. People from ancient Egypt started using magnets to play tricks, by making objects of worship float in mid-air by proper positioning of magnets. Legends have it, the emperor from China used magnets to save his palace by constructing gates made of loadstone. The amours made of metal got attracted to the magnetic gates and prevented them from going any further. De Magnete(1600), scientist William Gilbert has mentioned techniques of artificially making magnets from steel. In 1820, the concept of electromagnetism was discovered by Hans Christian Oersted, who observed a deflection in the compass needle from magnetic north when the electric current from the battery he was powering his set up with was switched on and off.

Video on story behind discovery of magnets

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