1879: Edison demonstrates incandescent light

In the first public demonstration of his incandescent lightbulb, American inventor Thomas Edison lights up a street in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Although the first incandescent lamp had been produced 40 years earlier, no inventor had been able to come up with a practical design until Edison embraced the challenge in the late 1870s. After countless tests, he developed a high-resistance carbon-thread filament that burned steadily for hours and an electric generator sophisticated enough to power a large lighting system. One of the most prolific inventors in history, Edison acquired a record 1,093 patents in his lifetime and laid the basis for the modern electric world.