Thomas Edison

In recognition of the enormous contribution inventors make to the nation and the world, the Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97 - 198), has designated February 11, the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Alva Edison, as National Inventors' Day. The men among Magellan's expedition were also the first Europeans to observe the following:. The destroyer USS Edison (DD-439) was launched in 1940 in his honor. Magellan's expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe and the first to navigate the strait in South America connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The town has many Edison historical landmarks including the gravesites of Edison's parents. Four crewmen of the original 55 on the Trinidad finally returned to Spain in 1525. The depot is appropriately been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum. The expedition actually eked out a small profit, but the crew were not paid their full wages.

The Port Huron Museums, in Port Huron, MI, restored the original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young newsbutcher. On September 6, 1522, Juan Sebastián de Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage and the last ship of the fleet, Victoria, arrived in Spain, almost exactly three years after leaving. The hotel was renamed The Hotel Edison, and retains that name today. Twenty crewmen died of starvation before Elcano put in to the Cape Verde Islands, a Portuguese holding, where he abandoned 13 more crewmen July 9 in fear of losing his cargo of 26 tons of spices (cloves and cinnamon). The City Hotel, in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, was the first building to be lit with Edison's three-wire system. By May 6, 1522, the Victoria, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations. Life magazine (USA), in a special double issue, placed Edison first in the "100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years," noting that his light bulb "lit up the world.". The Victoria set sail via the Indian Ocean route home on December 21, 1521.

The Edison Medal is the oldest award in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, and presented annually "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts.". This attempt failed; the ship was captured by the Portuguese, and was eventually wrecked in a storm while at anchor under Portuguese control. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu Thomson, and surprisingly to Tesla in 1917. Several weeks later, Trinidad left the Moluccas to attempt to return to Spain via the Pacific route. Four years later the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to present the medal as its highest award. As a result, Victoria with some of the crew sailed west for Spain. The Edison Medal was created on 11 February 1904 by a group of Edison's friends and associates. The small Victoria was not large enough to accommodate all the surviving crewmembers.

There is a Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum in the town of Edison. They concluded that the Trinidad would need to spend considerable time being overhauled. The town of Edison, New Jersey, and Thomas Edison State College, a nationally-known college for adult learners in Trenton, New Jersey, are named for the inventor. The crew tried to discover and repair the leak, but failed. See also incandescent light bulb. As they left the Moluccas, however, Trinidad was found to be taking on water. For a discussion of Edison's Record company and its role in the recording industry, see: Edison Records. The two remaining ships, laden with valuable spices, attempted to return to Spain by sailing west.

Main article : List of Edison patents. They managed to trade with the Sultan of Tidore, a rival of the Sultan of Ternate, who was the ally of the Portuguese. His contributions to technology benefited people world-wide, and in 1878, he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France, and in 1889 was made a Commander in the Legion of Honor. After reaching the Moluccas (the Spice Islands) November 6, 1521, 115 crew were left. The 13.5 acre (55,000 m²) property is maintained by the National Park Service as the Edison National Historic Site. Pigafetta mentions some of the technology of the court, such as porcelain (which was not yet widely available in Europe), and spectacles (eye-glasses were only just becoming available in Europe). The remains of Thomas and Mina Edison are now buried there. Brunei disdained the cloves which were to prove more valuable than gold, upon the return to Spain.

He purchased a home known as Glenmont in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina in West Orange, New Jersey. In addition, Brunei boasted tame elephants and armament of 62 cannon, more than 5 times the armament of Magellan's ships. His second marriage was to Mina Miller (1865-1946), also with three children, Madeleine, Charles (who took over the company), and Theodore Miller. They anchored off the Brunei breakwater for 35 days, where the Venetian Pigafetta mentions the splendor of Rajah Siripada's court (gold, two pearls the size of hens' eggs, etc.). He was married twice, the first time in 1871 to Mary Stilwell (1855-1884), with whom he had three children—Marion Estelle, Thomas Jr., and William Leslie—before she died at age 29, probably of typhoid fever. They left that island on June 21, 1521, and were guided to Brunei, Borneo by Moro pilots, who could navigate the shallow seas. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.". The fleet, now reduced to Trinidad and Victoria, fled westward to Palawan.

Edison was a vegetarian: "Non-violence" he said, " leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Accordingly, on May 2, 1521, they abandoned Concepcion, burning the ship to make sure it could not be used against them. "Nature," he said, "is not merciful and loving, but wholly merciless, indifferent."[3]. The casualties suffered in the Philippines left the expedition with too few men to sail the three remaining ships. Thomas Edison was a freethinker, and was most likely a deist, claiming he did not believe in "the God of the theologians," but did not doubt that "there is a Supreme Intelligence." However, he rejected the idea of the supernatural, along with such ideas as the soul, immortality, and a personal God. However, Antonio Pigafetta had been making notes about the language, and was apparently able to continue communications during the rest of the voyage. In April of 1896, Edison and Thomas Armat's Vitascope was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. Enrique escaped his indenture on May 1, with the aid of Rajah Humabon, amid the deaths of almost 30 crewmen.

In 1894, Edison experimented with synchronizing audio with film; the Kinetophone loosely synchronized a Kinetoscope image with a cylinder phonograph. However, after Mactan, the remaining ship's masters refused to free Enrique. On August 9, 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. Enrique was indentured by Magellan during his earlier voyages to Malacca, and was at his side during the battles in Africa, during Magellan's disgrace at the King's court in Portugal, and during Magellan's successful raising of a fleet. Now, people could go to a penny arcade, put in a coin, put on the headphones, and watch a film through the peep-hole. Thus Enrique became the first man to circumnavigate the globe (in multiple voyages). This was especially important to Thomas Edison because he had been searching for a way to entertain customers that were listening to music on his phonograph. His interpreter, who was baptized Enrique (Henry) in Malacca 1511, had been captured by Sumatran slavers from his home islands.

This device was installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. Magellan had provided in his will that his Malay interpreter was to be freed upon his death. In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope, or peep-hole viewer. Antonio Pigafetta, a wealthy tourist who paid to be on the Magellan voyage, provided the only extant eyewitness account of the events culminating in Magellan's death, as follows:. American Mutoscope Company" [2]. Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan, against indigenous forces led by Lapu-Lapu, on April 27, 1521. In 1902, a US court rejected Edison's claim that he be granted sole rights over all aspects of movie production in the case "Edison v. The initial peace with the Philippine natives proved misleading.

There, he made the first copyrighted film, Fred Ott's Sneeze. Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly to them, and even agreed to accept Christianity. He built what has been called the first movie studio, the Black Maria, in New Jersey. They traded gifts with Rajah Kolambu of Limasawa, who guided them to Cebu, on April 7. Edison established the standard of using 35 mm (then 1 and 3/8 inches) film with 4 perforations on the edge of each frame that allowed film to emerge as a mass medium. Magellan was able to communicate with the native peoples because his Malay interpreter could understand their language. As with the electric light, an improvement upon ideas developed by others. On 6 March, they reached the Marianas and on 16 March, the island of Homonhon in the Philippines, with 150 crewmen left.

Edison holds the patent for the motion picture camera, but it is argued that William Kennedy Laurie Dickson actually invented it while working in the Menlo Park research lab. Heading northwest, the crew reached the equator on 13 February 1521. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system. Magellan named the waters the Mar Pacifico (Pacific Ocean) because of its apparent stillness. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. On November 28, the three remaining ships entered the South Pacific. The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. Magellan first assigned Concepcion and San Antonio to explore the strait, but the latter, commanded by Gomez, deserted and returned to Spain.

However, Sprague, who later developed many electrical innovations, always credited Edison for their work together. Now, the strait is named the Strait of Magellan. In 1884, Sprague decided his interests in the exploitation of electricity lay elsewhere, and he left Edison to found the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company. Four ships began an arduous passage through the 373-mile long passage that Magellan called the Estreito (Canal) de Todos los Santos, or "All Saints' Channel," because All Saints' Day, 1 November, occurred while the fleet traveled through it. He did important work for Edison, including correcting Edison's system of mains and feeders for central station distribution. At 52° South latitude on 21 October 1520, the fleet reached Cape Virgenes and concluded they had found the passage, because the waters were brine and deep inland. Sprague's approach was to calculate the optimum parameters and thus save much needless tinkering. After this experience, Magellan decided to wait for a few weeks more before again resuming the voyage.

Prior to his arrival, Edison conducted many costly trial-and-error experiments. Two of them returned, overland, to inform Magellan of what had happened, and bring rescue to their comrades. Sprague was a good mathematician, and one of Sprague's significant contributions to the Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park was the introduction of mathematical methods. All of its crewmembers survived and made it safely to shore. Johnson, and joined the Edison organization in 1883. Santiago, sent down the coast on a scouting expedition, was wrecked in a sudden storm. Sprague, a former naval officer, was recruited by Edward H. Magellan, behind schedule, was impatient to make up for lost time, and set out again while the weather still posed problems.

Frank J. On 24 August the journey resumed. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor." He profited from his good connections with Europe - European inventors often did not apply for US patents for their ideas, so that Edison was free to develop their ideas further himself and then obtain his own US patents. Quesada and Mendoza were executed, and Cartagena and a priest were marooned on the coast. He himself said: "genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." Nikola Tesla, possibly Edison's most famous employee who went on to be a great scientist and inventor in his own right, said about Edison's method of problem-solving: "If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. It was unsuccessful, mainly because the crew remained loyal. He was the undisputed head of the team, but usually did not share credit for the inventions. A mutiny involving three of the five ship captains broke out.

As exemplified by the light bulb, most of Edison's inventions were improvements of ideas by others, achieved through a diligent and industrial approach and team-based development. On 31 March the crew established a settlement that they called Puerto San Julian. Since the 1950s, high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems have become more common in certain situations. Magellan decided to spend the winter in Patagonia. AC distribution systems replaced DC, enormously extending the range and improving the safety and efficiency of power distribution. It was already late in the season, however, and the southern winter struck while they were still on the Argentinian coast. Many of Edison's inventions using DC ultimately lost to AC devices proposed by others. The fleet reached Río de la Plata on January 10, 1520.

Edison's series of animal executions peaked with the electrocution of Topsy the Elephant. Afterwards, they continued to sail south along South America's east coast, looking for the strait that Magellan believed would lead to the Spice Islands. Edison presided personally over several electrocutions of animals, primarily stray cats and dogs, for the benefit of the press to prove that his system of DC was safer than that of AC. There the fleet was resupplied, but these good conditions caused them to delay. Edison went on to carry out a campaign to discredit and discourage the use of AC. Since Brazil was Portuguese territory at the time, Magellan avoided it, and on December 13 anchored near present-day Rio de Janeiro, where the weather and the natives were generally friendly. _[1]. On November 20, the equator was crossed; on December 6, the crew sighted Brazil.

Brown, while Edison supervised their operations. Augustine in Brazil. In fact, like most of the output of the Menlo Park operations, the chair was primarily invented by a few of his employees, in particular Harold P. After a brief stop at the Canary Islands, Magellan arrived at the Cape Verde Islands, where they set course for Cape St. Popular myth has it that Edison invented the electric chair, despite being against capital punishment, solely as a means of impressing the public that AC was more dangerous than DC. Upon hearing of his departure, King Manuel ordered a naval detachment to pursue him, but Magellan eluded the Portuguese. Edison (or, reportedly, one of his employees) employed the tactics of misusing Tesla's patents to construct the first electric chair for the state of New York to promote the idea that AC was deadly. Spanish authorities were wary of the Portuguese admiral and almost prevented Magellan from sailing, but on September 20, Magellan set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with 270 men.

During the "War of Currents" era, Nikola Tesla and Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of DC for electric power distribution over the more efficient alternating current (AC) advocated by Tesla, who patented AC in Graz, Austria. On 10 August 1519, the fleet of five ships under Magellan's command left Seville and traveled south from the Guadalquivir River to San Lucar de Barrameda at the mouth of the rivers, where they remained more than five weeks. During the initial years of electricity distribution, Edison's DC was the standard for the United States, and Edison was not disposed to lose all his patent royalties. Trinidad was Magellan's flagship, and besides Faleiro the captains for the other four were Juan de Cartegena, Gomez, Gaspar de Quesada and Luis de Mendoza, respectively. Main article:War of Currents. With the money that Magellan and Faleiro had received from the king, the pair obtained five ships: Trinidad (tonnage 110, crew 55), San Antonio (tonnage 120, crew 60), Concepcion (tonnage 90, crew 45), Victoria (tonnage 85, crew 42), and Santiago (tonnage 75, crew 32).
. Magellan also took an oath of allegiance in the church of Santa María de la Victoria de Triana, giving money to the monks of the monastery so they would pray for his success.

On January 19, 1883, the first standardized electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey. Under the contract, Magellan and Faleiro, as joint captains-general, would receive one-twentieth of all profits and they and their heirs would gain the government of any lands discovered, with the title of Adelantados. On September 4, 1882, Edison switched on the world's first electrical power distribution system, providing 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan, around his Pearl Street laboratory. On 22 March 1518, King Charles approved Magellan's plan and granted him generous funds. On January 25, 1881, Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company. Ruy Faleiro, an astronomer and Portuguese exile, aided him in his planning, and he found an invaluable financial ally in Christopher de Haro, a member of a great Antwerp firm who had a grudge against the king of Portugal. The first investor-owned electric utility was the 1882 Pearl Street Station, New York City. He allegedly declared himself ready to sail southwards to 75° to realize his project.

In 1880, Edison patented a electric distribution system. He decided to pioneer this route to reach the Moluccas (Spice Islands), the key to the strategic and tremendously lucrative spice trade. This company and its technological heritage became General Electric in 1892. Having brought the Portuguese cartographical knowledge to the Spanish court, Magellan pointed out that there would exist a passage from South America, which he thought to be the Rio de la Plata, to the Pacific Ocean, forming a large bay-like river delta. After losing a court battle with Joseph Swan, they formed a joint company (Ediswan) to market the invention. Acquiring great influence in Seville, he gained the ear of Charles and the powerful Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, bishop of Burgos and the persistent enemy of Christopher Columbus. Litigation continued until October 6, 1889, when a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. With the help of Juan de Aranda, one of the three chief officials of Seville's India House, and of other friends, especially Diogo Barbosa, a Portuguese and father of Duarte Barbosa, Magellan became naturalized as a Spaniard.

patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William Sawyer and was invalid. Magellan reached Seville, the main port of Spain, on 20 October 1517, and from there went to Valladolid to see the teenage king, Charles I (later Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). On October 8, 1883, the U.S. Magellan formally renounced his nationality and went to offer his services to the court of Spain, changing his name from "Fernão de Magalhães" to "Hernándo de Magallanes.". On January 27, 1880, he filed a patent in the United States for the electric incandescent lamp. The King also told Magellan that he would have no further employment in his country's service after May 15, 1514. Edison made the first public demonstration of incandescent lighting on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. Several of the accusations were subsequently dropped, but Magellan fell into disfavor with King Manuel I, who refused to raise Magellan's pension.

Morgan and the Vanderbilts. He had also been involved in conflict with Almeida: after Magellan took a leave of the army without permission, Almeida gave a poor report on the sailor to the Portuguese court. In 1878, Edison formed Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers, including J.P. Although wounded and the recipient of several medals, Magellan was accused of illegal trade with the Islamic Moors. The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success. In 1511, Magellan was sent to Morocco where he fought in the Battle of Azamor (August 28 and 29, 1513) and received a severe knee wound while fighting against the Moorish-Moroccan stronghold. When Edison asked Western Union to make an offer, he was shocked at the unexpectedly large amount that Western Union offered; the patent rights were sold for $10,000. However, after secretly sailing a ship east without permission, he lost his command and was forced to return to Portugal.

The quadruplex telegraph could send four simultaneous telegraph signals over the same wire. In 1510, Magellan was promoted to the rank of captain. The Menlo Park research lab was made possible by the sale of the quadruplex telegraph that Edison invented in 1874. Magellan next journeyed to the East Indies in 1506, taking part in expeditions to the Spice Islands. While the earlier inventors had produced electric lighting in laboratory conditions, Edison concentrated on commercial application and was able to sell the concept to homes and businesses by mass-producing relatively long-lasting light bulbs and creating a system for the generation and distribution of electricity. It was here that Magellan would also first experience battle: when a local king refused to pay tribute, Almeida's party attacked, conquering the Muslim city of Kilwa in present-day Tanzania. By 1879, they had increased the burning time enough to make the light bulb commercially viable. In 1505 he was sent to India to install Francisco de Almeida as a Portuguese viceroy there and establish military and naval bases along the way.

After Edison purchased the Woodward and Evans patent of 1875, his employees experimented with a large number of different materials to increase the bulb's burning time. At age 20, Magellan first went to sea. Edison took the features of these earlier designs and set his workers to the task of creating longer-lasting bulbs. In 1496, Magellan became a squire. In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to the element of glowing wire carrying the current, although English inventor Joseph Swan used the term prior to this. Some speculate that he may even have been taught by Martin Behaim. Several designs had already been developed by earlier inventors including Joseph Swan, Henry Woodward, Mathew Evans, James Bowman Lindsay, William Sawyer, Humphrey Davey, and Heinrich Göbel. Here, with his cousin Francisco Serrano, Magellan continued his education, becoming interested in geography and astronomy.

For example, contrary to public perception, Edison did not invent the electric light bulb. At 12, Magellan became a page to King John II and Queen Eleonora at the royal court at the capital of Lisbon, where his brother had gone two years before. Many of his inventions were not completely original, but improvements which allowed for mass production. Magellan's parents died when he was ten. Most of Edison's patents were utility patents, with only about a dozen being design patents. The son of Pedro Rui de Magalhães, the mayor of the town, and Alda de Mesquita, Magellan had two siblings: his brother Diogo de Sousa, named after his grandmother, and his sister Isabel. Edison was the inventor of most of the inventions produced there, though he primarily supervised the operation and work of his employees. Magellan was born in Sabrosa (near Vila Real, in the province of Trás-os-Montes of north Portugal) or in Porto.

It was the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. . Edison's major innovation was the Menlo Park research lab, which was built in New Jersey. Eighteen members of his crew and one ship of the fleet did return to Spain in 1522, having circumnavigated the globe. The "gramophone," playing gramophone records, was invented by Emile Berliner in 1887, but in the early years, the audio fidelity was worse than the phonograph cylinders marketed by Edison Records. Though Magellan is often credited with being the first to circle the globe, he himself died in the Philippines and never returned to Europe. Sound quality was still low, and replays were limited before wear destroyed the recording, but the invention enjoyed popularity. He was the first to sail from Europe westwards to Asia, the first European to sail the Pacific Ocean, and the first to lead an expedition for the purpose of circumnavigating the globe.

A redesigned model using wax cylinders was produced soon after by Alexander Graham Bell. Ferdinand Magellan (Spring 1480 – April 27, 1521; Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães; Spanish: Fernando or Hernando de Magallanes) was a Portuguese sea explorer who sailed for Spain. His first phonograph recorded onto tinfoil cylinders that had low sound quality and destroyed the track during replay so that one could listen only once. Richard Humble, The Voyage of Magellan, (1988) Franklin Watts, ISBN 0-531-10638-1. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park" after the New Jersey town where he resided. W.D.Brownlee, The First Ships around the World, (1977) Lerner Publications Co., Minneapolis ISBN 0-8225-1204-1. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. For student readers