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Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. His parents were Sam Edison Jr. and Nancy Elliott.
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In 1859, Thomas took a job selling candy and newspapers on the Grand Trunk Railroad. In the baggage car he set up a printing press and a laboratory to do chemistry.
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In 1862, Thomas rescued a three-year-old from a track where a boxcar was about to roll into him. In return, the grateful father, J. U. MacKenzie, taught Thomas railroad telegraphy. Later that year he took a job as a telegraph operator in Port Huron.
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In 1868, Thomas became a telegraph operator in the main Western Union office in Boston and files his first patent application for an automatic vote recorder.
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On Christmas day, in 1871, Thomas marries Mary Stillwell, one of his employees.
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In 1879, Thomas invented the carbon-filament lamp and a direct-current generator for incandescent electric lighting.
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In 1886, two years after his former wife died, Thomas married Mina Miller.
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Edison dies in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, on October 18. The nation dims its light bulbs for one minute on the day of his funeral.
