Joe Biden: ‘A Black Man Invented the Light Bulb, Not a White Guy Named Edison’ Penny Starr 4 Sep 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden lamented the fact that American schools teach that a white man invented the light bulb during a meeting Thursday with residents of Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“Why in God’s name don’t we teach history in history classes?” Biden said during the event at Grace Lutheran Church. “A black man invented the light bulb. not a white guy named Edison. Okay? There’s so much. Did anybody know?”
The Democratic presidential nominee is wrong about this facet of history. While historians argue over whether Thomas Edison can claim sole credit for creating the incandescent light bulb, his invention took shape in 1879, he patented it in 1880 — before Lewis Latimer, a black man, came up with an improvement on the design.
Latimer, an accomplished scholar and inventor, designed a carbon light bulb filament in 1881 and patented it in 1882. According to History.com, his iterative contribution to the technology greatly improved each bulb’s durability:
Zitat Latimer, the son of runaway slaves, began work in a patent law firm after serving in the military for the Union during the Civil War. He was recognized for his talent drafting patents and was promoted to head draftsman, where he co-invented an improved bathroom for railroad trains.
His successes would garner him further attention from the the U.S. Electric Lighting Company, putting him at a company in direct competition with Edison, in 1880. While there, Latimer patented a new filament for the light bulb, using carbon instead of more incendiary materials, like bamboo, that were commonly used for filaments. The addition of the carbon filament increased the life span and practicality of light bulbs, which had previously died after just a few days. In 1884, he went on to work with Edison at the Edison Electric Light Company.
According to fact-checking site LeadStories.com, this false meme became popular thanks to an article from “LibertyWritersAfrica.com,” a race-obsessed blog which has seen many more of its headlines disputed, such as: • “Meet The Black Family Who Produced Cars For 100 Years Before Henry Ford” • “Research Shows That Chemicals in Foods Are Making Young Men Gay In The U.S.” • “How Black Female Prisoners Are Sterilized To Cut Welfare Costs In California” • “The First American President Was A Black Man — Not George Washington”
Biden did not indicate what sources had convinced him of this claim.
May 7 is Radio Day in Russia - known officially as Communication Workers' day. The BBC's Moscow correspondent Rob Parsons marks the occasion by taking a sideways look at the history of Russian technology and the unshakeable belief that the Soviets invented everything from rockets to radios.
Switch on the TV in Soviet Russia during the 1960s and you were sure to see propaganda films crowing the triumphs of Russian achievements in space.
Rob Parsons reports on the invented "triumphs" of Soviet science.
And there was indeed much to crow about. In 1961, the Soviet Union became the first country to put a man into space.
It was a crowning achievement in a century studded with Russian scientific discovery - and some memorable inventions, like the lightbulb, the radio and the television.
But hang on a minute - weren't they invented in the West? Didn't Marconi have something to do with radio and wasn't it a Scotsman who gave us the television?
Not if you're Russian they didn't.
...
One thing is indisputable. The Russian Communist Party occupied the airwaves long before the BBC.
Mikhail Kalinin, one of the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution, addressed the Russian people in 1919 by wireless. The Russians claim Alexander Popov invented the radio two years before the upstart Marconi.
The children shown around the Moscow Polytechnical Museum, home to an impressive collection of technological exhibits, are visibly impressed. When asked, they can name a mind-boggling list of Russian inventions - rockets, cars, parachutes, steam engines and aeroplanes, to name just a few.
But television presenter Alexander Gurnov doesn't stop there. We may not know it in the West, but Russian inventions have become an insidious part of our daily lives.
"You're English and you say 'Buy British' because you know that by buying British you stimulate British industry," says Gurnov. "By buying foreign we still buy things invented by Russians
"They're just produced abroad. Neck ties from Italy, jeans from USA - they're all Russian inventions. So there's no such thing as being unpatriotic by buying a BMW, because a BMW was founded by a Russian engineer."
Well, who are the great inventors? The Marxists in the people's paradise of the Soviet Union, or American blacks. It's all just so confusing.
Ever since late May, peaceful protesters in Portland have been peacefully smashing, looting, robbing, and burning things in a desperate attempt to make their once-quaint mountain town resemble Mogadishu.~~TakiMag