By Deb Oestreicher on December 27, 2005. Format: Paperback. I heard the title The Man with the Golden Arm long before I ever read the book or saw the movie. It's a beautiful, evocative title, but it also makes you think of something grotesque: a man with a shiny prosthetic.
Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in 1879, patenting it the following year. Before getting the right design for a long-burning, pleasant light for indoor use, he experimented with more than 1,600 different bulbs.
It was only when organizations like Britain's Royal National Lifeboat Institution started using life preservers that their use became widespread. By 1855 the the institution was using the Kisbee ring, a type of ring buoy invented by Lt. Thomas Kisbee, and a cork life belt, invented by Navy Cmdr. J.R. Ward in 1854.