Inventor: Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was born on February 11th, 1847 in the USA. At school, Thomas was punished and beaten for asking too many questions. And when the teacher said that Thomas was a bad learner, his angry mother educated him at home. Thomas started work when he was twelve years old, selling newspapers on the railway. In his free time, he experimented with electrical and mechanical apparatus. One day, he saved the life of a child, and as a reward he was taught telegraphy. Telegraph operators sent messages down telegraph lines by using a code, which represented the alphabet. While he was working as a telegraph operator, he invented the automatic telegraph system, an instrument that could send messages over a telegraph line automatically, without an operator. In 1877, he invented the phonograph: a machine that could record and play back the human voice. The first words ever to be recorded and then played back were “Mary had a little lamb...” It took ten more years to make the phonograph good enough to sell. Today’s huge recording industry began with his phonograph. Edison wanted to put electric lighting into even the poorest people’s houses. First he had to make a light bulb. In 1879, thousands of experiments later, he had one. Three years later in 1882 he built a great new electric power station on Pearl Street, New York, to put electricity into the homes of 85 families. Their houses had been specially prepared with light bulbs. The experiment worked and the lights went on in 85 different places. This was his most significant invention, and thanks mainly to Thomas Edison, the Age of Electric Light and Power had begun. He didn’t stop there! He invented many other things, the kinetoscope, a special type of battery, a different type of phonograph, and, in 1913, the first sound film. He contributed many inventions that were very important in the First World War. In total, he patented 1035 inventions, and received many prizes “for the development and application of inventions that have revolutionised civilisation”. He died in 1931.