Joined: 10-18-2005 Posts: 98,555
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"People fear that which is different. We've got to, for example, why in God's name don't we teach history in history classes? A Black man invented the light bulb, not a White guy named Edison," Biden said. "There's so much — did anybody know before what recently happened that Black Wall Street in Oklahoma was burned to the ground. Anybody know these things? Because we don't teach them. We've got to give people facts."
It was Edison who first invented the light bulb and a filament that could last 1,200 hours. According to the Department of Energy, Edison secured patents for the incandescent light bulb in 1879 and 1880. Biden was likely referring to Lewis Howard Latimer, who, according to a biography by MIT, patented an improved version of an incandescent light bulb in 1881 that could last even longer than Edison's. For perspective, 1,200 hours is 50 days -- far less time than modern incandescent bulbs last.
Latimer at the time worked for one of the companies competing with Edison's. Latimer was a child of former slaves, a Union Navy veteran, a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and eventually the only Black member of the research team known as "Edison's Pioneers," according to MIT, after he began working with Edison in 1884.
But he was not the original inventor of the light bulb.
Latimer was also claimed by some to have been the original inventor of the telephone. But he said in court that it was, in fact, Alexander Graham Bell, according to MIT.Film at 11...
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