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.
(18481928). Latimer made the lightbulb more practical and contributed to the invention of the first telephone. Background: Latimer was born in Chelsea, Mass. His parents were slaves who had escaped from Virginia. His father, George Latimer, was tried for being a runaway in an extremely famous case, but was ultimately allowed to remain in Massachusetts as a free man. Lewis Latimer enlisted in the Navy at age fifteen.