Edison did not invent the light bulb: about twenty inventors made incandescent lamps before him, including Russia's Alexander Lodygin, patented in 1874.

1874 · 1879 · apart: 5 years

Edison's feat was a long-lasting bulb and a whole power system.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• Edison's incandescent lamp1879 · Menlo Park. In October 1879 a carbon-filament lamp burned for over 13 hours in Thomas Edison's laboratory. Building on predecessors such as Lodygin and Swan, Edison produced a practical bulb and a power-distribution system that lit up cities.

19th century

More amazing facts

• 1872 · 1873 In Japan, 1872 ended on the 2nd of December.
• 1872 The first official international football match ended 0–0: Scotland and England played it in Glasgow on 30 November 1872 before 4,000 spectators.
• 1873 Jeans were patented in 1873, or rather the copper rivets on work trousers.
• 1873 Persia's Naser al-Din Shah was one of Iran's first photographers.
• 1874 · 1900 Max Planck was told not to study physics because almost everything had already been discovered.
• 1875 Mendeleev corrected the discoverer of an element he had never seen.

All amazing facts (1058) →