... Where Credit's due
by Andy Roth

Have you ever done a whole lot of work on something only to have someone else get the credit?  Feels rotten doesn’t it?  But maybe you’ll feel a little better to hear that, if this has happened to you, then you’re in really good company.  As a matter of fact the credit for some of the biggest inventions in recent history went to the wrong people.

Next time someone you hear someone say, “Thomas Edison invented the light bulb” you can proudly proclaim that they are completely, one hundred percent … wrong!  Thomas Edison was very well known at the time for inventing a lot of things, but the light bulb was actually not one of them.  A lot of other inventors had already made working versions of it.  Thomas Edison really only improved upon something that already existed.  People at the time just assumed that Edison invented the light bulb.  And as far as we know, he never corrected them.

Most people give credit to Gugliemo Marconi for inventing the radio.  But it was actually an inventor named Nikola Tesla who was the first to get the patent.  Tesla ran out of money before he could build his “Wireless Station Tower” and Marconi was able to establish the first transatlantic radio service and get the credit.  Tesla eventually did finish building his tower in 1907 in Shoreham, Long Island.

Alexander Graham Bell is known for inventing the telephone, and you know what … he did!  But so did another inventor named Elisha Gray.  The two men built similar versions of the thing at the same time but Bell made it to the patent office first.  Just think if Elisha had been a little faster, we’d be referring to the phone company as “Ma Gray” instead of “Ma Bell.”

So next time someone else gets the credit the you deserve, you can be proud, smile and say “I’m in good company,” … even though you may not feel like it at the time.