According to engineers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, with an iron nail, some copper wire and some D cell batteries, you can create your own electromagnet. Wrap the copper wire around an iron core. Attaching one end of the wire to the positive battery terminal and the other end of the wire to the negative terminal to produce a working electromagnet.
Joseph Henry is one of the first scientists to perform experiments with electromagnets. According to the Smithsonian Institution Archives, in 1831 Henry developed an experiment for creating electromagnet motors. This was believed to be the first experiment to demonstrate continuous motion generated by magnetic attraction and repulsion.
In 2010, Technology Review.com recently a report of an electromagnet experiment conducted by the French Ministry of Defense. Engineers working on the experiment are creating an electromagnet bazooka peeled right off the comic book pages. A short pulse of electromagnetic energy is bounced between a mirror and a specialized antennae to produce an amplified burst of electromagnetic radiation.