William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) first discovered ordinary magnetoresistance in 1856. He experimented with pieces of iron and discovered that the resistance increases when the current is in the same direction as the magnetic force and decreases when the current is at 90° to the magnetic force. He then did the same experiment with nickel and found that it was affected in the same way but the magnitude of the effect was greater. This effect is referred to as anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR).
In 2007, Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance.