EDISON DEMONSTRATES THE INCANDESCENT LIGHT
Menlo Park, New Jersey (JFK+50) On New Year's Eve, December 31, 1879, Thomas Alva Edison demonstrated the incandescent electric light for the first time in public.
The famed inventor had set up 100 bulbs around his laboratory here in Menlo Park and along Christie Street.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Company ran special trains to transport people to Menlo Park to observe the demonstration.
Mr. Edison had out performed other inventors with a "practical design, high resistance carbon-thread filament that burned four hours and an electric generator to power it."
JFK+50 COMMENT
On this New Year's Eve, we mourn the passing of JFK's granddaughter, Tatiana Scholossberg, at age 35. She, like her grandfather, leaves this world much too young. She was an accomplished woman who would have made the President very proud.
SOURCES
"December 31, 1879," JFK+50, December 31, 2010, www.jfk50.blogspot.com/
"Edison's 'New Year's Eve' Lamp," American History Museum, Smithsonian, www.si.edu/
"Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent light," www.history.com/
