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| 1847 | Thomas Alva Edison born February 11, in Milan, Ohio. |
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| 1854 | Moves with his family to Port Huron, Michigan. | |
| 1855 | Attends school for three months. | |
| 1859- 1862 |
Works selling newspapers and candy on the Grand Trunk Railway between Port Huron and Detroit. | |
| 1863 | Begins work as a telegraph operator wandering throughout the South and the Midwest. | |
| 1868 | Finishes his years as a traveling telegraph operator and patents his first invention, an electric vote recorder. | |
| 1869 | Announces his intention to become a full-time inventor, moves to New York City, and forms first business to manufacture telegraph equipment. | |
| 1871 | Establishes his own factory and laboratory in Newark, New Jersey. Marries Mary Stilwell. | |
| 1874 | Develops a Quadruplex system for the telegraph. | |
| 1876 | Establishes laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey. | |
| 1877 | Invents the phonograph and a carbon transmitter for use in a telephone receiver. |
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 Hear Edison recite "Mary had a little lamb." |
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| 1879 | Develops the first truly successful electric incandescent light. | |
| 1882 | Opens Pearl Street Central Power Station in New York City. | |
| 1884 | Edison's wife, Mary, dies. | |
| 1886 | Edison marries Mina Miller. | |
| 1887 | Establishes laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey. | |
| 1888 | Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter patent an improved phonograph called the "graphophone." Edison develops his own improved phonograph in response. | |
| 1889 | Forms Edison General Electric, and invents kinetograph, an early motion picture camera. | |
| 1892 | Sells his interest in the electricity companies with the formation of General Electric by the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston. | |
| 1899 | Fails in his efforts to develop a commercial process of magnetic ore separation. | |
| 1910 | Perfects a nickel-iron-alkaline storage battery. | |
| 1911 | Organizes Thomas A. Edison, Inc. | |
| 1929 | The Henry Ford opens in Michigan on the 50th anniversary of the electric light. Edison reenacts his invention of the light bulb at the reconstructed Menlo Park lab in Greenfield Village. | |
| 1931 | Edison dies October 18, aged eighty-four. | |
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