When was the first experimental confirmation of the equivalence principle made?

The equivalence principle was explored experimentally in the 19th century, with François Arago's 1831 observations providing an early clue that inertial and gravitational mass are equivalent. Later, Loránd Eötvös performed much more precise torsion-balance tests in the 1890s. These experiments supported the idea that all bodies fall at the same rate in a gravitational field, regardless of composition. Einstein later made this principle central to general relativity.