1. Electric Christmas lights were invented by Thomas Edison and his business associate Edward Johnson. Edison created the first strand of electric lights and hung them outside his laboratory in New Jersey during the holidays in 1880.
Two years later, Edward hand-wired 80 red, white, and blue light bulbs, and strung them together around a tree in front of a window to the street . . . powered by a generator. It wasn’t until 1903 that General Electric began to offer pre-assembled kits of Christmas lights for consumers.
3. The original title of “1984” was . . . “1980”. But George Orwell got sick while he was writing it, the book got delayed, and he wanted a large enough gap between when it was published and the future he was writing about.
4. You’ve probably heard of the games “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?” and “Where in the U.S.A. Is Carmen Sandiego?” Broderbund Software also created “Where in North Dakota Is Carmen Sandiego?” in 1989. It was made for the Apple Two computer and is the only Carmen Sandiego game where she’s hiding in a specific state.
