On 22 October 1879, in his laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison and his team lit an incandescent lamp with a carbonised cotton thread filament in a vacuum bulb, and it burned for about 13 and a half hours. Many inventors, including Joseph Swan in England, had made electric lights, but Edison designed the whole system with a high-resistance filament, generators, wiring and meters. The Pearl Street power station in Manhattan began to supply electric light to 400 lamps on 4 September 1882. Within decades, electricity lit cities and powered factories.
Before and after
- from 5 April 1879 to 4 April 1884War of the Pacific
- 26 April 1879Birth of Owen Willans Richardson
- from August 1879 to October 1880Victorio's War
- 9 October 1879Birth of Max von Laue
- 22 October 1879Edison's carbon-filament lamp burns for 13 hours
- 26 October 1879Birth of Leon Trotsky
- 5 November 1879Death of James Clerk Maxwell
- from 17 November 1879 to 29 May 1885International Association of the Congo
- 1880Discovery of Oxus Treasure
More in Science & technology
- 1789Discovery of uranium
- 1807Discovery of potassium
- 30 June 1808Discovery of boron
- 1810Discovery of fluorine
- 1823Discovery of silicon
- 1898Discovery of neon
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.