The e-cig was first developed and manufactured in China in 2003. However, this was not the beginning of the history of the e-cigarette. The first documented references to an electronic cigarette come from the 1930s when Joseph Robinson patented it in the U.S. But, there is no evidence that this technology was ever used or that a prototype was ever manufactured.
Then, by 1965, the first physical element resembling what we know today as an electronic cigarette was created in the United States by Herbert A Gilbert. He patented certain elements of the technology used in it. He did not gain popularity or recognition for it. The resemblance Herbert's creation had to the modern electronic cigarette was uncanny. His patents expired 10 years later.
The year 1979 arrived and the history of the electronic cigarette continued to progress when Phil Ray, one of the pioneers of the computer industry along with his personal physician, began to develop a model of electronic cigarette that he could bring to the market, but it was not electronic at all.
The function of it was to vaporize nicotine and it was from there that the first research work on the potential delivery of nicotine was conducted.
Between the 1990s and the 2000s, there were several studies and trials conducted to develop an electronic cigarette, but none were successful. Also, they had nothing in common with the modern e-cigs that exist today.
However, this led to the development of a new technology with the "heat-not-burn" concept, which is used today. Also during this period, one of the major tobacco companies in the United States submitted an application to the FDA to develop and market e-cigarettes, but the FDA denied the application.
This denial by the FDA caused the United States to suspend the attempted development of an e-cig. The end, but also the beginning of the history of the modern e-cigarette comes until 2003, when in Beijing, China, the first successful e-cigarette is manufactured by Hon Lik.
He is a pharmacist and smoker who, at the age of 52, was motivated to create this device by the death of his father, who smoked a lot and died of lung cancer.