Thomas Edison Timeline of Events

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Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial research laboratory...

Timeline of Events

1869

6.1.1869

Thomas Edison receives a patent for his electric voting machine.

1876

8.8.1876

Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1877

11.21.1877

Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.

11.29.1877

Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.

12.6.1877

Thomas Edison, first human voice recorded, {Mary had a little lamb.}

1878

2.19.1878

Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.

1879

10.21.1879

Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13½ hours before burning out).

12.31.1879

Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time.

1880

2.13.1880

Thomas Edison observes the Edison effect.

5.13.1880

In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.

10.1.1880

First electric lamp factory is opened by Thomas Edison.

1881

1.25.1881

Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.

1883

1.19.1883

The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.

1888

8.14.1888

A recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan's The Lost Chord, one of the first recordings of music ever made, is played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison's phonograph in London.

10.17.1888

Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).

1889

10.6.1889

Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture.

1891

5.20.1891

History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.

8.24.1891

Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.

1892

8.9.1892

Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.

1897

8.31.1897

Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.

1903

1.4.1903

Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by Thomas Edison during the War of Currents campaign.

1904

3.3.1904

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany becomes the first person to make a sound recording of a political document, using Thomas Edison's phonograph cylinder.

1931

1.6.1931

Thomas Edison submits his last patent application.