Edison Thomas (1847-1931)

An American pioneer of electricity and the founder of General Electric, Edison was first and foremost an inventor of new technologies (he registered over a 1000 patents!). He began his career as a telegraph operator assistant but he successively improved the apparatus he was using. In 1877 he completed the construction of his first cylinder phonograph and in 1879 he registered the patent for an electric incandescent filament light bulb. He invented the kinetoscope in 1888; he perfected it in 1913 (kinetophone) by syncing one of his phonographs to a camera and a kinetoscope, thus achieving the first sound film.