Timeline of Thomas Edison Inventions

Thomas Edison was one of the greatest inventors in human history. So wide was his field of work that he was famously dubbed as "The Wizard of Menlo Park" by a local journalist. Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on the 11th of February, 1847, to Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. and Nancy Matthews Elliott. With 1093 US patents and several UK, Germany and France patents in his name, Edison is one of the most prolific inventors of all time. His contributions to mankind and far too many for us to ever be grateful enough. Here is an account of some of Edison's important inventions.

Thomas Edison's Inventions

1868: He invented an automatic vote recorder for legislatures.

1869: He invented several telegraph devices.

1871: He made several improvements in stock ticker technology.

1874: He invented the quadruplex telegraph for Western Union company, which transmitted four messages simultaneously.

1875: He invented the electric pen, an early copying device.

1877: He invented the phonograph (seen in the picture, alongside Edison) and the carbon transmitter (a crucial improvement in phone technology).

1879: He invented a direct current generator for incandescent electric lighting and the carbon filament lamp.

1882-1883: He designed and contracted for the first three-wire central station for distributing electric light, power, and heat - in standardized form - in Brockton, Massachusetts. He discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that later came to be known as the "Edison effect," but he called it the "Etheric Force". He specifically, determined that an independent wire, grid, or plate placed between the legs of the filament of an incandescent lamp acted as a "damper" or valve to control the current.

1886: He invented an improved wax-recording phonograph called the graphophone.

1881 - 1887: He invented a system of wireless telegraphy, (by induction) to and from trains in motion, or between moving trains and railway stations. The new system was installed on the Lehigh Valleys in 1887, and was used there for many years. He invented a wireless system of communication between ships at sea, ships and shore and ships and distant points on land.

1887 - 1890: He made major improvements on the brown wax and black wax cylinder phonograph. He obtained over eighty related patents, while establishing a very extensive commercial business in the manufacture and sale of phonographs and records, including associated dictating machines, "shaveable" records, and shaving machines.

1891: He made a number of inventions associated with improving electric railways. He invented and patented the motion picture camera. This mechanism, with its continuous tape-like film, made it possible to take, reproduce, and project motion pictures as seen and heard today.

1891 - 1900: He developed his great iron ore enterprise, in which he did some of his most brilliant engineering work. One of his most significant inventions of this period was a giant roller machine for breaking large masses of rock and finely crushing them. He invented the Fluoroscope realizing the necessity and value of a practical fluorescent screen for making examinations with X-rays. He made thousands of crystallization of single and double chemical salts and finally discovered that crystals of calcium tungstate made in a particular way were highly fluorescent to the X-ray. He also made many several improvements on the X-ray tube.

1905: He invented a revolutionary new type of dictating machine, which enabled the dictator to hear repetitions and make paper scale corrections.

1907: He invented the Universal Electric Motor which made it possible to operate dictating machines on all lighting circuits.

1900 - 1909: He made many important inventions relating to the processes involved in the production of pre-cast buildings.

1900 - 1910: He invented and perfected the steel alkaline storage battery and made it a commercial success

1910 - 1914: He invented the diamond point reproducer and the "indestructible" record, thereby commencing a new era in phonographs.

1912: He invented the Kinetophone or talking motion picture.

1913: He Invented an important automatic correction device for the dictating machine.

1914: He invented the Telescribe, combining the telephone and the dictating phonograph, thus permitting - for the first time - the recording of both sides of a telephone conversation.

1915: He invented the first synthetic form of carbolic acid (C₆H₆O).

Edison passed away at the age of 84 years in West Orange, New Jersey on 18th of October 18, 1931. His death marked a great loss for mankind, for his death took away from us one of the greatest inventor, businessman and scientist of all time.