In 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted, Danish, physicist and chemist; first to note magnetic effect of electric current.

In 1824, François Arago, French, physicist; showed people the rotating magnetic field which was the foundation of AC induction motor.

In 1831, Michael Faraday, British, scientist; discovered and investigated induction law and invented single pole DC motor.

In 1833, Hippolyte Pixii, French, instrument maker, built the first oscillating DC generator.

In 1833-1836, Otis, American; first design and invented ARBOR step motor.

In 1834, Moritz von Jacobi, German-Russian, engineer and physicist; made the first real useful rotary DC electrical motor.

In 1866, Werner Siemens, German, industrialist; invented the first self-excited motor

In 1867,  James Clerk Maxwell, British, scientist; made a mathematical analysis of the phenomenon of self-excitation and published the first classic paper in the theory of electric machinery

In 1871, Van Meeren invented AC motor.

In 1879, Walter Baily, British; based on Arago's rotations, by manual switching on and off, developed the first primitive commutatorless induction motor.

In 1880, Thomas Edison, American; proposed to adopt laminated iron core, which reduced the loss of iron core and reduced the armature temperature rise.

In 1884, Manchis invented the compensating winding and the commutator pole, and the Brothers Hopkins invented the transformer.

In 1886, the Hopkins brothers established ohm's law of magnetic circuits, which enabled the design of magnetic circuits for electric motors.

In 1888, Galileo Ferraris, Italian, physicist and engineer; delivered a paper on “use AC to generate electric rotation”. At the same time, Tesla and Ferraris invented induction motor independently.  

In 1889, Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, Polish-Russian engineer, electrician, and inventor,steadfast in his promotion of three-phase development, invented the three-phase induction motor of both types cage-rotor and wound rotor with a starting rheostat, and the three-limb transformer

In 1891, Arnold established the theory of DC armature winding, and then the three-phase system was rapidly popularized

In 1899, when studying the armature reaction of salient pole synchronous motors, Brontel put forward the double reaction theory, which was later developed by Doherty, Nicol and Peck, and became the basis of modern synchronous motor theory

In 1920,  A British invented step motor

Around 1940, a series of new control motors appeared, such as motor enlarger, AC tachometer generator, and loop conversion transformer, etc.

In 1970, the step motor research group of the university of Leeds in England pioneered a prototype of switched reluctance motor, which was the earliest research on switched reluctance motor

In 1978, Rexroth introduced permanent magnet AC servo motors and drive systems

In 1992, T.A. Lipo and other famous American electrical experts, first proposed the dual-salient permanent magnet motor