Today in History

August 31, 1897
Moving toward movies
Prolific American inventor Thomas Edison receives a patent for a simple motion-picture viewer called a kinetoscope, considered a forerunner of modern movie projectors. The device uses a lens and a rotating shutter to lend the illusion of motion to strips of photographic film illuminated by another of Edison's inventions, the electric lightbulb. Though they are a popular novelty item for a few years, kinetoscopes can only be used by individual viewers and are soon outmoded.



Today's Feature History Article

A Wizard's Scribe

Before the phonograph and lightbulb, the electric pen helped spell the future for Thomas Edison




 



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