15 Weird and Interesting Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was one of the most prolific inventors of his time. He had over 1000 patents to his name and is notable for inventing the electric light bulb. Here are 15 more facts you probably didn’t know about the great inventor

1. Surprisingly, Thomas Edison wasn’t doing well in school at first. His teachers found it difficult handling him because he was a hyperactive child and got easily distracted. As a result, his mother withdrew him from school and home-schooled him instead.

2. Thanks to his mother’s decision to remove him from school, Thomas developed a voracious appetite for knowledge and reading. To encourage his thirst for knowledge, she bought him a book about chemistry experiments when he was just nine. He ended up doing all the experiments in the book.

3. He was born with an unusually broad head which was considered larger than average.

4. Edison initially wanted to be an actor and was fond of William Shakespeare’s works. However, he wound up not pursuing that path because he was shy and didn’t like his high-pitched voice.

5.Due to his love for knowledge, Thomas Edison read every book in the library starting from the last book on the bottom-most part of the shelf.

6. He exhibited his entrepreneurial skills from an early age, boarding trains to sell candy, newspapers, and vegetables. One day, *while selling his merchandise*, he saved a child from an incoming train. The father of the boy was so grateful to Edison that he offered to train him to become a telegraph operator. This experience influenced Edison’s interest in communication which helped his invention career.

7. After his brief stint selling newspapers, Edison ventured to publish his own newspaper – The Grand Trunk Herald – and sell. The stories he published were always up-to-date and as a result, the newspaper was very successful.

8. As an adult, Edison was partially deaf due to contacting scarlet fever and ear infections in the early years of his life. His hearing subsequently worsened due to an incidence with an angry train conductor.

9. Thomas Edison invented the first record player – the Phonograph. Interestingly, the first recording in the phonograph was “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.

10. He was instrumental in the invention of the motion picture box which made the process of making movies more efficient. However, this was not the purpose Edison initially intended for the motion picture box. He created it as a device that would record the last words and wishes of dying people.

11. For a long time, Hollywood has been home to the movie industry and it is all because of Thomas Edison!

12. One fun fact about Edison is that he once created a device to kill cockroaches with electricity.

13. He also tried creating a device that would hunt ghosts! Unfortunately, this led to the death of one of his assistants during the testing process.

14. Indeed, Edison was a man ahead of his time. He was big on solar energy.

“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy.“What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that,” he once said.

15. To honour Edison, his birthday, February 11, was declared National Inventors’ Day by the US congress in 1983.

What other intriguing Edison Facts do know? Tell us in the comment section below.