Lightbulb SWAGZ

First Lightbulb (1870):
By: Parker Tugaw

The inventor Thomas Alva Edison (in the USA) experimented with thousands of different filaments to find just the right materials to glow well and be long-lasting light bulbs. In 1879, Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free bulb glowed but did not burn up for 40 hours. Edison eventually produced a bulb that could glow for over 1500 hours. Edison placed his filament in an oxygenless bulb. (Edison evolved his designs for the lightbulb based on the 1875 patent he purchased from inventors, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans.)  However, Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb.

Sources:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/edison/lightbulb.shtml

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllight2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison