Thomas Edison

The revolutions project revolves (no pun intended) around the industrial revolution and the hight of inventing on a large scale. Some people take the industrial revolution for being all about the invention of mass production, but some extremely important things were invented in this period of time that have nothing to do with large quantities at. Now of course if something is invented, the point is to replicate it and to sell it all over the world, but that is besides the point. One of the most prestigious inventors of this incredible age was Thomas Alva Edison. He is most widely know for inventing the lightbulb, but he had countless other breakthroughs in his lifetime (a total of 1093 patents.)

Thomas Alva Edison was born on  February 11, 1847. He grew up infatuated with science and electricity, so much in fact that his mother forced him to move downstairs because he kept exploding things all around the house. At a very young age, Thomas read the full book, A School Compendium of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. This book was what fueled most of his experiments in his later life and was such an intense book that he was tossed out of his school for asking to complicated questions that the teacher couldn't answer.  (Thomas as a boy below)

Edison had an amazing number of jobs in his youth, the most prevalent problem being that he was always inventing easier ways to do things that corrupted the system of work. He mainly worked for telegraphing companies because he was a whiz at morse code tapping in messages. Most of his patents had to do with things that improved the slow process of telegraphing.

Thomas Edison started his inventing in Newark, New Jersey which would soon become the site for his famous Menlo Park Lab. Edison's first recognizable invention was the telegraph, which was the first device that could successfully record a sound and play it back. This invention started the idea of a telephone which Edison contributed to, though he is usually not recognized for his work in that area. This is the first ever recorded sound.>

Thomas began his work on the lightbulb in his Menlo Park lab and invented the term filament. This is the inside of the lightbulb that actually emits light. Thomas Edison experimented with over 1000 different materials for the filament before finding bamboo which was the first one that actually burned for about 20 minutes. He spent many careful years crafting and perfecting his precious lightbulb and the finished product could burn for as many as 400 hours. When he finished his lightbulb work, he began to produce them and sold them to the Newark city. The people were amazed when the first lights began to color the streets and keep the city from plummeting into darkness at night.

Thomas Alva Edison died on October 18, 1931 and when his funeral was held, the whole world was dark, remembering the man who brought just a little bit more lightness to this world.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
A book I read last year that I cannot find on the web

Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety nine percent perspiration. ~Thomas Alva Edison

The Battle of Yorktown

              
    As many people in the world know, the United States was not always its own country. The Battle of Yorktown was the last major battle of the United States Revolutionary War.

                  The United States Revolutionary War started when the British military received word that the colonists were collecting weapons in Concord to use against Britain. They were gathering weapons because the crown was taxing them, going against the British law of “no taxation without representation.” The colonists had no representation in the British government, therefore, by British law; it was illegal for the colonists to be taxed. The Parliament insisted that they had the right to tax colonists because their land was not part of the British mainland.

                  General Thomas Gage sent troops to the colonies to confiscate the weapons. The colonist fired at the troops, starting the Revolutionary War. The first battle was called the battle of Lexington and Concord.

                  The battle that I am focusing on is the last major battle of the war, the battle of Yorktown. Prior to the battle of Yorktown, 5,550 French soldiers landed in Rhode Island to assist the Patriots in recapturing New York City, which was under British occupation. The fate of the United States depended on the soldiers arriving. If the French soldiers had been unable to arrive, for reasons such as weather, then the Patriots may have lost the Revolutionary War, and there would be no US.

"Siege of Yorktown." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 06 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yorktown>.

                  The French commander, Comte de Rochambeau, convinced George Washington that an attack on New York City would be a bad idea, and recommended that they attack the 9,000 men army of Lord Cornwallis. This army was stationed in Yorktown, Virginia. Rochambeau recommended that attack because he had Comte de Grasse’s navy fleet in Yorktown, which could assist in the attack.

                  De Grasse defeated a British fleet in Yorktown, which blocked all sea escape for Cornwallis. Washington dispatched French General Lafayette to hold Cornwallis in Yorktown. Here again we can see that the fate of the United States really rested on a few very important things that happened in the battle. If Lafayette had been unable to hold Cornwallis in Yorktown, Cornwallis would have met up with more soldiers and attacked the American forces again. The American forces had been prepared for government, and were now ready to make the final attack. On October 14, 1781, Washington sent two columns to attack the remaining outer British forces. On October 17, Cornwallis asked for capitulation terms. The surrender ceremony was held on the 19^th. Cornwallis claimed to be ill and was not present. The United States began bargaining with Britain, resulting in the Treaty of Paris. The Treaty was signed in 1783.


Image Sources
 

"American Revolution : The Battle of Yorktown." British Battles - Analysing and Documenting British Battles from the Previous Centuries. Web. 06 Feb. 2012. <http://www.britishbattles.com/battle-yorktown.htm>.

"Battle Pics." Mercer Island School District. Web. 06 Feb. 2012. <http://blogs.misd.k12.wa.us/rcimprich/2011/04/26/the-battle-of-yorktown-diary-entry-5-due-427/>.

"Siege of Yorktown." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 06 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yorktown>. 

Further Reading
 

Wikipedia on The Battle of Yorktown

Another Good Website

Weapons Information For The Battle of Yorktown

My Website on The Battle of Yorktown (For my Do/Make)