Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847. He didn't have any brothers or sisters. When he first went to school the teacher sent him home after three months declaring him "addled." So his mother had to teach him herself. She helped him to learn at home. His father was a businessman, and beat him regularly. Edison got his first job selling newspapers on the train which ran from Port Huron, where the family then lived, to Detroit, about 63 miles (100km) away. As a small boy, a conductor pulled his ear. Then he felt something in his ear crack, but he was happy because he couldn't hear any noise.

When he was twenty-four years old, he married with Mary Stilwell. He invented quadruplex telegraphy in 1873. When he was thirty years old he invented the phonograph and improved the telephone receiver. One year later, he invented the electric light bulb. When he was thirty- seven years old, his wife died. Two years later he married with Mina. When he was forty-one years old he made the phonograph perfect. In 1888, he invented an instrument called a "Kinetoscope." It was like cinema. In 1915, he became President of the Navy Consulting Board. He died on October 18, 1931. He is very famous now because he invented lots of things.