Time Tangled Island: Thomas Edison
Updated February 21, 2017 | Factmonster Staff
![Updated by an Factmonster Editor on February 21, 2017](/themes/ip/images/info-circle.png)
Factropica Fast Facts and quizzes
by Beth Rowen
![]() Related Links |
Try our Thomas Edison Quiz!
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.
- More from World Geography