The first example of a magnetoelectric effect was discussed in 1888 by Wilhelm Röntgen, who showed that a dielectric material moving through an electric field would become magnetized. The possibility of an intrinsic magnetoelectric effect in a (non-moving) material was conjectured by Pierre Curie in 1894, while the term "magnetoelectric" was coined by Peter Debye in 1926. A mathematical formulation of the linear magnetoelectric effect was included in Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz 's Course of Theoretical Physics. Only in 1959 did Igor Dzyaloshinskii, using an elegant symmetry argument, derive the form of a linear magnetoelectric coupling in chromium(III) oxide (Cr 2 O 3). The experimental confirmation came just a few months later when the effect was observed for the first time by D. Astrov. The general excitement which followed the measurement of the linear magnetoelectric effect lead to the organization of the series of Magnetoelectric Interaction Phenomena in Crystals (MEIPIC) conferences. Between the prediction of Dzyaloshinskii and the MEIPIC first edition (1973), more than 80 linear magnetoelectric compounds were found. Recently, technological and theoretical progress, driven in large part by the advent of multiferroic materials, triggered a renaissance of these studies and magnetoelectric effect is still heavily investigated.