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He was born in Miilan, Ohio.
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When he was 3 he fell into a grain elevator and almost drowned in the grain because he wanted to know how the elevator worked.
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At age 4, his father found him squatting on some duck eggs in a cold barn to see if he could hatch the eggs instead of the mother duck.
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When he was 7, his mother took him out of school and taught him at home because his teachers thought his constants questions were a sign of stupidity.
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When he was about ten, he set up a chemisty lab in the basement in his home, and during one of his experiments, he set the basement on fire and nearly blew himself up.
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When he was 12, in order to earn money to pay for the chemicas for his experiments, he went into bussiness selling candy and newspapers to the local train.
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He was forced to stop his experiments temporarily when a stick of phosphorous started a fire in the crude lab he had set up in the baggage car.
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Once he gave a friend a triple dose of seidlitz powders, hoping that enough gas would be generated to enable hm to fly.
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At sixteen he was given the chance to learn how to be a telegraph operator, and he became as fascinated by electricity as he had been with chemistry
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By the age of 21 he had changed from an experimenter to inventor.
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In 1876 he moved to New Jersey, to a longer place where he could expand his work. He established his own research centre there.
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He introduced his first great invention, the phonograph, to the world.
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He showed his greatest invention, the first incandescent light that was practical for society to use. Other inventors had produced electric lighting in laboratories, but none produced lights that were long-lasting enough to be sold to consumers.
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On the day he died, the American President asked everyone in America to turn off their electric lights for one hour, as a tribute to his genius.