AT A GLANCE: The modern world is an electrified world. The light bulb, in particular, profoundly changed human existence by illuminating the night and making it hospitable to a wide range of human activity. The electric light, one of the everyday conveniences that most affects our lives, was invented in 1879 by Thomas Alva Edison. He put together what he knew about electricity with what he knew about gas lights and invented a whole of electrical system. Inventor: Thomas Alva Edison   Criteria: First practical. Modern prototype. Entrepreneur. Birth: February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio Death: October 18, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey Nationality: American Invention: electric light bulb on October 18, 1879 Function: noun / electric light bulb / incandescent lamp Definition: An electric lamp in which a filament is heated to incandescence by an electric current. Today's incandescent light bulbs use filaments made of tungsten rather than carbon of the 1880's. Patent: 223,898 (US) issued January 27, 1880 Milestones: 1868 Edison's first invention was a Vote Recorder 1869 Printing Telegraph 1869 Stock Ticker 1872 Automatic Telegraph 1876 Electric Pen 1877 Carbon Telephone Transmitter 1877 Phonograph 1879 Dynamo 1878 Thomas Edison founded the Edison Electric Light Company 1879 Incandescent Electric Lamp 1880 223,898 Thomas Edison 1/27 for Electric Lamp and Manufacturing Process 1881 Electric Motor 1881 238,868 Thomas Edison 3/15 for Manufacture of Carbons for Incandescent Lamps 1881 251,540 Thomas Edison 12/27 for Bamboo Carbons Filament for Incandescent Lamps 1883 he observed the flow of electrons from a heated filament—the so-called "Edison effect" 1886 Talking Doll 1889 Edison Electric Light Company consolidated and renamed Edison General Electric Company. 1890 Edison, Thomson-Houston, and Westinghouse, the "Big 3" of the American lighting industry. 1892 Edison Electric Light Co. and Thomson-Houston Electric Co. created General Electric Co. 1897 Projecting Kinetoscope 1900 Storage Battery capS: Edison, Thomas Alva Edison, Incandescent Electric Lamp, electric lamp, electric light bulb, light bulb, General Electric, most U.S. patents, electric industry, inventor, biography, profile, history, inventor of, history of, who invented, invention of, fascinating facts.