Time Tangled Island: Thomas Edison

Factropica Fast Facts and quizzes

by Beth Rowen

Related Links Thomas Edison Biography A Guide to Inventions and Discoveries Timeline of Everyday Inventions

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Factropica Fast Facts

• Thomas Edison registered 1,903 patents.
• Thomas Edison received his first patent on June 1, 1869. It was for the electric vote recorder.
• When testing his phonograph, Thomas Edison recited the first stanza of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
• Thomas Edison developed the world's first central electric-light power plant, which provided electricity to New York City starting in 1882.
• Thomas Edison was almost completely deaf.
• Thomas Edison and William Dickson worked together to develop a motion picture camera, which they called the kinetoscope. They introduced motion pictures in 1891, and started to produce movies in 1893.
• Thomas Edison's laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, employed 10,000 people during World War I.
• Edison's most famous inventions were the first practical long-lasting light bulb and the phonograph.
• Thomas Edison only went to school for three months. After that, he was home-schooled.
• Edison spent 10 years and millions of dollars on trying to devise a convenient way to mine iron ore that would power steel mills in Pennsylvania. His vision never materialized.

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