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. ...
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