Expo thrives on 'current' inventions

Q: Did Thomas Edison contribute any of his great inventions to the World Expo?

A: Edison or his works featured in at least five expos: Philadelphia 1876, Paris 1878, 1881 and 1889, and Chicago 1893.

He brought a power-generating device to the second Paris Expo in 1881 that was capable of powering 1,200 light bulbs at a time and weighed over 27 tons. Eight years later at the subsequent expo in the city of romance, visitors had to wait up to three hours to listen to the music played through one of his phonographs.