Thomas Edison registered 1,903 patents. Thomas Edison received his first patent on June 1, 1869. It was for the electric vote recorder. When testing his phonograph, Thomas Edison recited the first stanza of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Thomas Edison developed the world’s first central electric-light power plant, which provided electricity to New York City starting in 1882. Thomas Edison was almost completely deaf. Thomas Edison and William Dickson worked together to develop a motion picture camera, which they called the kinetoscope. They introduced motion pictures in 1891, and started to produce movies in 1893. Thomas Edison’s laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, employed 10,000 people during World War I. Edison’s most famous inventions were the first practical long-lasting light bulb and the phonograph. Thomas Edison only went to school for three months. After that, he was home-schooled. Edison spent 10 years and millions of dollars on trying to devise a convenient way to mine iron ore that would power steel mills in Pennsylvania. His vision never materialized.
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