This article traces the development of electrospray back to its earliest beginnings. Many readers may be surprised to learn that descriptions of the electrostatic attraction of liquids to surfaces appear in the scientific literature as early as the year 1600, and that true electrospray experiments are documented to have been performed in the eighteenth century. Progress in the development of electrospray is detailed through these earliest observations and subsequent ingenious applications, mathematical descriptions, and, finally, coupling to mass analyzer instrumentation.