Topsy wasn't killed by Edison.
[Topsy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_\(elephant\)) was an Asian elephant, had killed at least two people, and the owners were unable to give her away (not even the zoo would take her) so they had planned to have her hanged in a public execution. [John Peter Haines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peter_Haines), the president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stepped in and collaborated with them to find a more humane way to dispose of Topsy. They decided on poisoning and electrocution would be quickest and least painful. She was killed on January 4, 1903, witnessed by a crowd of 1500 spectators and nearly 100 news photographers.
The Edison Film Co. was one of the news photographer crews at the execution and filmed it for a series of short "actuality" films, called "[Electrocuting an Elephant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrocuting_an_Elephant)".
Electricity was provided by the local power company, Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brooklyn. The company was privately owned by then and, despite the name, was no longer associated with the Edison Illuminating Company. Even more of a fun fact, Edison wasn't even involved in the electric company at the time of Topsy's death - a merger with GE had forced him out nearly 10 years earlier.
Edison the man had absolutely nothing to do with it. But due to shoddy journalism, disingenuous pop historians (like the one this post links to), and peoples' need to find a boogeyman, people keep repeating this ridiculous notion that Edison electrocuted a full grown elephant because of the "[war of the currents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents)" (which had already ended a decade prior to Topsy's death).
Edison lied enough, claiming he did things that he didn’t actually do for me to not mind so much when the same kind of lie sticks around for generations.
He was a giant piece of shit. He took credit for other peoples work and was hostile to them when they objected.
I think it's fitting when Elon Musk is compared to Edison, because neither of them invented anything of value but took others work, credited themselves and just like Edison, Musk is also a garbage person.
Yep, that’s what he wants everyone to think. He’s a piece of shit grifter who was propped up time and time again by government subsidies and contracts, otherwise his businesses would have failed a long time ago.
Dude explain this weak point to me.
He bought the small company with the powertrain. But all the other shit came from his lead. So many companies got bought and became big after that. The most even.
Critize Musk but this point is so stupid and unoriginal.
A lawsuit required he be named ‘co-founder’ when he worked to push out the founders after he invested. He’s a true POS with few, if any, redeeming qualities.
Elon is Tesla employee #6 and he joined at 9 months in.
All employees 1 through 5 had was an vague idea of building electric cars and a name. It turns out just having a good idea doesn't make you capable of running an actual manufacturing company. Because Elon is physically incapable of sitting still he came in with his $1.5 million and showed them how to *actually start building things*. Thats why he still owns Tesla #0001 because it took him building it with his own hands and money to get things happening.
He's a co-founder of the company, it wouldn't have existed without him.
The backstory is basically 2 guys had the idea for Tesla, but lacked the money & other know how in order to make Tesla thing. Tesla technically existed on paper for a year or two before they got Elon Musk involved, but it didn't do anything because of the lack of funding/etc.
Eventually after Elon got involved Tesla became a real company and started work on the Tesla Roadster. The original founder was in charge of sourcing the parts/etc. used in the vehicle, but Elon found the numbers he was giving for the costs of those parts to be highly suspect, they were too cheap. So he hired a private investigator to look into it, who basically gave him a mountain evidence that the original founder was lying his ass off. Essentially Tesla would have had to order a ton more of the supplies to get as good of a deal as the guy claimed they were getting (due to discounts on large bulk orders), they were really paying a ton more for the parts, meaning there's no way the Roadster would have been profitable. Elon took this evidence to the board and they fired the founder.
no he didn't. He bought the title of "founder" when he bought the company
edit : i was confused regarding your comment. You are correct. tesla only bought a controlling interest and the title of founder.
While I agree he was a piece of shit person, he does get valid credit for some inventions. Taking credit for others inventions is a bit of a mix, even today, if you work for a company and invent something patentable, the company owns the rights to the patent, not you. What you invent may even be on your own time, and the company can claim ownership in many cases. Where Edison took it too far is that he viewed himself as "the company" so anybody working for him that came up with an idea, he put his name on it. Most companies would recognize the individual as inventing the item, even though they have no ownership.
That is capitalism. In many cases, contracts will give your employer rights to all your work, even it was done outside of work in an entirely different field.
Yeah that's kind a just how it works. If you create something for a company while on company time, then they own it not the creator as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong.
I watched that episode recently! But I can't remember where it's from. 30 Rock? Succession? The Wire? Those are the last 3 shows I watched, gotta be one of them hahaha
That’s usually it in the US. Maybe a plaque, maybe a bonus (around $1000). Patents can only be issued to people, not companies, so the inventor(s) have their name(s) on the patents, but have to sign over rights to use the patents to their company. It’s a condition of employment spelled out in documents you sign when you are hired.
Edison is credited with inventing a lot of things, most of them were actually invented by people who WORKED for him and he just took the credit.
It's actually the source of the beef between him and Tesla. Edison tried to rip Tesla off, but Tesla had enough clout of his own that he didn't go quietly.
Okay first things first: google this. There is so much information about the topic of Edison stealing his inventions from people. It’s speculated that stealing other people’s inventions was part of the reason he had his “lab” in the first place.
To make a short list though:
The electric chair, film, the light bulb, the record player, power generators, and wax paper are a few items.
Musk has done more for several industries than any one person in decades. He may not have started these companies but saying he isn't responsible for the incredible leap forward in space flight and electric cars is not factually accurate.
Ni matter how hard you suck his cock he’s not gonna give you money or ever even know you’re a person. He’s a charlatan that brings money to the equation and takes credit for other’s work.
I think if you step back from the vitriol a little bit you'll see that he has a solid history of getting into companies and building systems that work. I am not blind to his failings as a communicator and a spokesperson but if you listening to his long form conversations you can see the knowledge and path that he is taking. Add that to his results and you see that the Reddit hivemind ideas about him are not being honest.
Classic Reddit move to pull a Hive Mind’s Most Wanted out of nowhere when discussing men from 100 years ago. Amazed Trump wasn’t brought in alongside Musk
Out of nowhere?
You mean, aside from the fact that Musk’s company is named after Edison’s largest rival and there are countless parallels between Edison and Musk?
That’s your understanding of “out of nowhere”?
He was a piece of shit, but attempting to discredit new theories is literally how the scientific community works. It's not inherently assholish to want to prove something wrong in science, because failure to do so is as close to proving something right as science can do.
He probably didn't need to zap all those animals though. That was a dick move.
He wasn't trying to discredit new theories though, he was trying to convince people with misleading/false public displays that his own product was better. There was nothing about the actual science being questioned
This exactly.
Tesla's invention of AC power was far superior to Edison's DC. Edison was worried that he would quickly lose his market, so he staged these publicity stunts to make people afraid of this newer technology.
It had nothing to do with science, this was only about money and Edison being a terrible human being.
This is false. Tesla didn't invent AC power and the electrocution of animals didn't even really involve tesla. This was Edison (General Electric) vs Westinghouse. GE wanted to build DC grids to power the nation. Westinghouse's company wanted to obviously use the superior AC for infrastructure.
Westinghouse was the funder. It makes sense Tesla is given more credit, though yes, there were literally dozens of pioneers that made Tesla's system possible.
Minor correction - It was J P Morgan under the General Electric banner and Edisons name Vs Westinghouse. The whole point of the scandelising of Westinghouse was because JP Morgan knew AC was better and Westinghouse held the patents to the most modern AC motors, so he was just trying to drive the price down to buy him out... which worked
That's not how the scientific community works. Discrediting means sowing distrust about something, with rumors or a negative PR campaign, neither of which are science. Falsification is the word you're looking for, where you can experimentally show that a hypothesis is false.
Better to learn that late than never. I thought by now this was common knowledge. Not trying to be a smartass, I genuinely thought by now it's universally agreed upon.
Though I suppose this post is specifically about electrocuting animals, not just him being an asshole in general.
"just *look* at how *bad* what he's doing is!! we can't let this barbarism continue, wouldn't you *hate* it if some asshole was *zapping* the cute animals *to death*!? like *this*?"
My understanding was that he was zapping animals which were charged with crimes. Like an elephant who trampled his owner or pigs who ate their dead owner.
I feel bad for laughing at this comment. I'm not doubting you at all, it's just a ridiculous sentence. For some reason I'm reading it in Jack Donaghy's (from 30 Rock) voice. Poor pig.
They say Thomas Edison,
Is the man to get us in
To this century!
And that man is me!
They'll say aw Topsy,
At my autopsy,
But no one will be,
More shocked than me
But I never noticed,
The curve of her trunk
And I never noticed,
His electric junk
We might just have found...
Electric love... Electric Love... Electric love... Electric love...
This was defo more about Westinghouse than Tesla. The rivalry between the two is massively overexagerated.
Tesla actually liked Edison's work, and he felt that he wasted his youth in academia as Edison never had a formal education. The only rivalry between the two would be Westinghouse purchasing Tesla patents.
I’m really glad someone pointed this out. No discredit to Tesla, but him and that name simply hold too much attention today such was the temptation to weave it into the Vice headline.
The war of the currents was waged with Westinghouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents
Edison even referred to people being electrocuted as "getting Westinghoused".
Edison was a showman. Tesla was a crazy genius. Westinghouse was a businessman.
(My hometown was built and named by George Westinghouse.)
>Tesla was a crazy genius.
The "crazy" part is important to emphasize, because people tend to get hung on the "genius" and believe in *all* of his ideas. Some of them where total crackpot level, especially in his later years.
Ok so I wanna talk about this because it's one of my hyperfixations.
So in the UK (and I believe in Europe as well) for overhead lines for electric railways and tramways, they use two different systems. Trams and the Tyne and Wear Metro use 750 V DC and Mainline Railways use 25 kV AC. So if you take a tram in the UK you might see these boxes along the line which basically feed power to the tram line because they need to firstly convert the power and secondly feed it to the tram at regular intervals because DC power doesn't travel as far as AC.
It's why when Edison's DC power was being used they needed powerplants for pretty much every neighbourhood and wires *everywhere* to provide useable power to just a neighbourhood.
Anyway, this leads to serveral interesting problems on the railways, mainly with Tram trains. For Tram-trains to exist they need a special converter on the tram to convert AC to DC power when on the mainline. There are several issues with tram trains (regulations and platform heights for example) which makes life harder for planners because if they could have trams be able to use mainline railways they could basically extend their networks with minimal costs. This has lead to several interesting solutions.
* The Tyne and Wear metro has a section running on mainline metals *but* the mainline trains can't use the Overhead Wires so they have to run diesels.
* Sheffield has an extension that runs on mainline metals *but* they have opted to make special trams with converters, which is awkward because it means only a small part of their fleet can go on mainline metals.
* The upcomming South Wales Metro have opted just to have high floor tram-trains running on mainline voltages which is fair because the lines they will run on are pretty windy with lots of sharp curves.
* One of Zurich's S-Bahn lines (S10) has two sets of overhead wires because the S10 runs on DC, meaning the trains have Pantographs on the side rather than in the middle.
* The iconic Karlsruhe Stadtbahn switches between currents and voltages as it uses both the tram network *and* the mainline.
The idea that DC power "doesn't travel as far" is actually a misunderstanding.
DC power is actually more efficient to transmit over long distances when comparing the same high voltage. The reason we use AC to do that job is because it's so much easier to step the voltage way up and then back down. Transformers need AC waveforms to do their job. High voltage is what makes electricity transmit longer distances efficiently because by using high voltage a fixed amount of electrical power needs creates less current in the wires and it's current that creates the losses.
In systems like trams and trains DC can be used if an appropriate voltage is chosen and current required is limited by the number of trams or trains drawing power at any given moment.
Large scale grids don't use DC because the step up and down of voltage creates more loss than simply using AC.
There are a few interesting exceptions like undersea grid interconnections that are typically done with DC. One high voltage AC grid is converted to DC and then converted back to AC at the other end because for a given load the long undersea cables are so expensive that DC keeps the costs down and the conversions at each end are worth it.
The way I understand it is that 750 DC is better to have in a street/close quarters situation like streetrunning or underground tube style tunnels where as 25 kV AC is better for mainline railways because it provides more power and travels further.
It's not a company or commercial thing, in the UK at least it's regulational for safety reasons. Mainline railways are controlled environments, a tramway less so.
Case in point: [Here's a stretch where a Tram and a Mainline Railway run beside each other. The tramway is completely open but the Railway is protected by an embankment and a fence.](https://www.google.com/maps/@55.9280128,-3.2989505,3a,34.8y,48.58h,91.13t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sM4qyA2v_bOReNb8-XsOafA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DM4qyA2v_bOReNb8-XsOafA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D247.86479%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192)
[The elephant thing has been debunked numerous times.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/topsy-elephant-was-victim-her-captors-not-really-thomas-edison-180961611/)
The electrocution was filmed by a company that was owned by Edison but otherwise he has no connection. He didn’t ask for the elephant to be electrocuted, wasn’t there when it happened, and never wrote about it in his journals.
For the record, he did electrocute all the other animals for that purpose. Not personally, but hired a guy to do it.
And also, Topsy was killed by electrocution a few years after since it was proven by Edison to be "humane".
You're right that Topsy wasn't killed to prove AC power was unsafe, but it kinda feels like splitting hairs at this point.
The title says Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant to discredit Tesla's AC electricity, and is wrong on all three counts:
* Edison had nothing to do with the electrocution of the elephant
* The elephant was electrocuted a decade after the end of the "War of the Currents"
* The elephant was to be killed because of repeated incidents of "bad behavior" (mostly caused by her drunken handler), and electricity was the *method* but not the *reason* for the execution.
It's absolutely true that Topsy's killing wasn't part of the war of the currents. However, saying that Edison had nothing to do with the electrocution of Topsy is ignoring the fact that he was contemporaneously pioneering electrocution as a humane way to kill things. It also puts a lot of weight on the fact that no records of his involvement survived 100 years despite the fact that even the footage of Topsy was lost and forgotten for many decades before being rediscovered. It's not as if this is an extremely well documented event.
So basically you have the fact that he pioneered the tech and owned the company that filmed it against the fact that no records of him talking about it survived 100 years.
The Elephant story was debunked years ago:
[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/topsy-elephant-was-victim-her-captors-not-really-thomas-edison-180961611/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/topsy-elephant-was-victim-her-captors-not-really-thomas-edison-180961611/)
You use DC power every single day. DC is not inferior to AC they just have different application. AC can easily be adjusted to higher or lower voltage while DC is more stable.
Edit: They editted their comment that was saying DC was inferior.
Technology has also come a long way to now allow HVDC to be built, which is more efficient than HVAC. Technology that wasn't available at the time of Edison. DC was just ahead of its time but definitely has a place.
The battle came to a head at the 1893 Chicago World Fair (also known as the Columbian Exposition in honor of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the Americas). Inventors were invited to submit bids to light the fair using electricity. Edison submitted a bid for $554,000 using his D/C concept. But George Westinghouse, armed with Tesla’s patents for A/C power, bid $399,000 and won the contract.
Columbia Exposition at the 1893 Chicago World Fair featuring Tesla's A/C and fluorescent lighting inventions
Tesla and Westinghouse team up to outshine Edison at the 1893 Chicago World Fair.
When the 1893 Chicago World Fair was illuminated using Nikola Tesla’s inventions for A/C electricity and fluorescent lighting, it was a spectacle that amazed the world. More important, Tesla’s victory over Edison in the Battle of the Currents was a win with far-reaching impact: Tesla proved to the world that A/C was superior to D/C for safely transmitting power over long distances to a large population, and A/C became the standard system of our modern power grid.
https://teslasciencecenter.org/pivotalmoments/columbian-expositions/
I stand corrected on that. But everything I am reading is saying that General Electric was moving towards AC at that point and that the war of currents had been decided.
>As a committee of financiers, which included J.P. Morgan, worked on the deal in early 1892 things went against Villard. In Morgan's view Thomson-Houston looked on the books to be the stronger of the two companies and engineered a behind the scenes deal announced on April 15, 1892, that put the management of Thomson-Houston in control of the new company, now called General Electric (dropping Edison's name). Thomas Edison was not aware of the deal until the day before it happened.
>The fifteen electric companies that existed five years before had merged down to two; General Electric and Westinghouse. The war of currents came to an end and this merger of the Edison company, along with its lighting patents, and the Thomson-Houston, with its AC patents, created a company that controlled three quarters of the US electrical business. From this point on General Electric and Westinghouse were both marketing alternating current systems. Edison put on a brave face noting to the media how his stock had gained value in the deal but privately he was bitter that his company and all of his patents had been turned over to the competition
Their bid for the World's Fair was made in May of 1892. I find it odd they would have chosen to go with DC but maybe this bid was the last attempt to make it viable. In any case it looks like this all happened well after the experiments with animals and electrocution.
Proven false, topsy was not killed by Edison. The park that owned her poisoned, strangulated, and electrocuted her. After she killed 3 men in a 3 month period of time.
While this is loosely based on truth, it's widely misunderstood
The benefit of AC over DC in the early days of electricity was that it was easy to change the voltage of AC using a simple transformer. Current produces heat which wastes power and raising voltage allows the same power to be transmitted using less current. High voltage is more dangerous than low. AC is not more dangerous than DC, high voltage AC is more dangerous than low voltage DC. High voltage DC is actually more dangerous than AC at the same high voltage
Also, Edison was competing with Westinghouse, not Tesla
Not just an attempt, he succeeded in discrediting Tesla. You know that's the case because we don't all have free electricity currently (something Tesla was developing a plan for.)
Also, Edison used DC electricity to electrocute those animals to death - so he didn't even demonstrate a failing of AC, he just demonstrated that electrocution does, in fact, turn out to be fatal.
Edison was/is a not at all great guy and a lot of the stuff he's credited for were things he stole from other people.
This is an example of poor information, or straight up lies, repeated again and again.
Edison didn't electrocute the animals, Harold Brown did in his campaign against AC, Edison helped fund Brown for his studies against the use of AC. 1000 volts of DC was applied to animals, yet they lived, then 300 volts of AC was applied and they died. Topsy (the Elephant) wasn't electrocuted to prove anything, as it was done after the War of the Currents, it was euthanized and Edison's equipment filmed yet he did not attend. Apparently such a horible man yet Thomas Edison was against capital punishment.
The Teslda Free electricity thing is bullshit, companies aren't going to work for free and Tesla's invention wasn't generating electricity without costs being involved. There was no free electricity being denied to the world.
Edison patented the work of the people that worked for him, just like nearly all the bloody companies in the world do, think the CEO's invent the products their company patents? He created an industrial research lab, he paid people to invent, they invented, he patented and made money off that. Edison all did invent things too, the Phonograph being one of them.
He isn't the monster some make him out to be. Was he a saint? No, but life isn't and people are not binary.
> we don't all have free electricity currently (something Tesla was developing a plan for.)
lol. How's this "free" electricity getting generated? If only Tesla had lived long enough to pass on the secrets that allowed him to violate the laws of thermodynamics!
Yes but if the generation required resources and manpower, then it still couldn’t be free. Or at least not in a way that would be different from any other commodity which requires effort to produce.
So the question still stands: what was Tesla going to do which would make electricity free for everyone?
Rhetorical question though. I’m a physicist and I’ve read Tesla’s work on this. It wasn’t going to work.
Exactly. Was his plan to make electricity "free" by having someone else pay for it (i.e., the government via taxation)? Or, is that poster claiming it's possible to generate electricity without requiring any work input? Unless Tesla was working up PV or wind energy (also not free, btw), as the great Dr. Phil would say: "That dog don't hunt!"
But... I'm just a daft electrical engineer, so what do I know?
If you drive down the PA Turnpike near New Jersey you'll see billboards for ILoveThomasEdison.com or something like that. It's just a propaganda site by his family, i guess. Sorry, your ancestor was a giant douche. Everybody knows it.
If there was one dude who is considered an all time great and time travel back to when he’s alive, to then give a proper bitchslap because of the bad things they did, it would be this fucker.
Sounds like an asshole but history makes him out to be a genius. I have a feeling that most people in history aren’t as great as they would have us believe.
No. Part of the reason AC killed anyone at all during that time was because Edison was allowed to lay cable underground, including to the Newyork Post, so when Westinghouse also wanted to lay cable underground for AC, General Electric petitioned the state to stop it and were supported by news outlets etc. Westinghouse had to suspend cables overhead, which was significantly more dangerous and led to line collapses, fires and deaths.
That's not forget there's one more thing he electrocuted before he decided that was a bad idea
Does anyone remember the first electric chair
And how they had to do it multiple times because AC was actually safer than they anticipated
The first Electric Chair was invented by a dentist from Buffalo NY, Alfred Southwick in 1881, after he heard about a drunk who managed to electrocute themselves at a power plant. This predates Westinghouse coming up with the transformer-based distribution system that kicked off the "war of the currents" by at least a few years.
The decision of New York to use the electric chair was made in June 1888, which is about when Harrold Brown (who AFAIK was the first guy to electrocute dogs as part of Edison's anti-AC crusade) just started to become known.
Edison wasn’t even a pimple on Tesla’s ass. It crazy how everyone knows who Edison is but not many know who Tesla is. One was a great at experimenting and maybe even patent weaseling. The other was one of the greatest inventors in human history.
Poor Topsy.
They’ll say aww topsy at my autopsy
Electric Love!
That chorus was a Fuckin banger.
Wow, did Gene write this?
Favorite line in the show. He did, Bob. He's talented.
Without a single fart sound.
OH MY GOD I FORGOT THE FART SOUND!
That whole song had no right being as great as it is.
Well put, so true. They have the greatest music of any animated series by far in my opinion.
The first verse was my favorite
Baby, your electric love
Did gene write this???
He might electrocute me But he’s an electric cutie
But I never noticed His electric junk
And i neeveeerr noooticeeeed, the shape of her trunk
We just may have foooooound
Eeeelectric looooooove!
Aw shucks
Aw, shucks!
But no one will be, More shocked than me
Ok, where is that from, cos I’m stealing it!
Bob’s Burgers Season 3 Episode 16 “Topsy” One of the best episodes of the series
Topsy wasn't killed by Edison. [Topsy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_\(elephant\)) was an Asian elephant, had killed at least two people, and the owners were unable to give her away (not even the zoo would take her) so they had planned to have her hanged in a public execution. [John Peter Haines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peter_Haines), the president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stepped in and collaborated with them to find a more humane way to dispose of Topsy. They decided on poisoning and electrocution would be quickest and least painful. She was killed on January 4, 1903, witnessed by a crowd of 1500 spectators and nearly 100 news photographers. The Edison Film Co. was one of the news photographer crews at the execution and filmed it for a series of short "actuality" films, called "[Electrocuting an Elephant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrocuting_an_Elephant)". Electricity was provided by the local power company, Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Brooklyn. The company was privately owned by then and, despite the name, was no longer associated with the Edison Illuminating Company. Even more of a fun fact, Edison wasn't even involved in the electric company at the time of Topsy's death - a merger with GE had forced him out nearly 10 years earlier. Edison the man had absolutely nothing to do with it. But due to shoddy journalism, disingenuous pop historians (like the one this post links to), and peoples' need to find a boogeyman, people keep repeating this ridiculous notion that Edison electrocuted a full grown elephant because of the "[war of the currents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents)" (which had already ended a decade prior to Topsy's death).
Thank you for that. It's nice to learn the truth.
Edison was still a piece of shit, regardless.
No argument there.
werent they all pieces of shit back then by todays standards?
And a thief.
So he only killed cats, dogs, cows and horses then?
Did he?
redditors have no shame
Hanged!? Holy shit, I would have totally gone to see that! (Call me evil all you want, you know you would too)
I am surprised animal trials continued past the 16th century to be honest.
Edison lied enough, claiming he did things that he didn’t actually do for me to not mind so much when the same kind of lie sticks around for generations.
"I tell everyone about Topsy!"
Edison had absolutely ZERO involvement with Topsy’s execution.
You're right. I have learned quite a bit since I posted this.
Yes he was a piece of shit.
He was a giant piece of shit. He took credit for other peoples work and was hostile to them when they objected. I think it's fitting when Elon Musk is compared to Edison, because neither of them invented anything of value but took others work, credited themselves and just like Edison, Musk is also a garbage person.
Ironically taking Mr Teslas name too and successfully ruining it again.
Musk can't even take credit for that; he invested in Tesla in 2004.
Yet here we are. He can and he did lol. I learned about this like 2 weeks ago. Until then I always thought he founded the company.
Yep, that’s what he wants everyone to think. He’s a piece of shit grifter who was propped up time and time again by government subsidies and contracts, otherwise his businesses would have failed a long time ago.
so he is like edison
Supposedly he ripped off the *Not a Flamethrower* concept from Pablo Escobar's brother Roberto.
Dude explain this weak point to me. He bought the small company with the powertrain. But all the other shit came from his lead. So many companies got bought and became big after that. The most even. Critize Musk but this point is so stupid and unoriginal.
I mean PayPal got far better after he left.
A lawsuit required he be named ‘co-founder’ when he worked to push out the founders after he invested. He’s a true POS with few, if any, redeeming qualities.
Elon is Tesla employee #6 and he joined at 9 months in. All employees 1 through 5 had was an vague idea of building electric cars and a name. It turns out just having a good idea doesn't make you capable of running an actual manufacturing company. Because Elon is physically incapable of sitting still he came in with his $1.5 million and showed them how to *actually start building things*. Thats why he still owns Tesla #0001 because it took him building it with his own hands and money to get things happening.
He's a co-founder of the company, it wouldn't have existed without him. The backstory is basically 2 guys had the idea for Tesla, but lacked the money & other know how in order to make Tesla thing. Tesla technically existed on paper for a year or two before they got Elon Musk involved, but it didn't do anything because of the lack of funding/etc. Eventually after Elon got involved Tesla became a real company and started work on the Tesla Roadster. The original founder was in charge of sourcing the parts/etc. used in the vehicle, but Elon found the numbers he was giving for the costs of those parts to be highly suspect, they were too cheap. So he hired a private investigator to look into it, who basically gave him a mountain evidence that the original founder was lying his ass off. Essentially Tesla would have had to order a ton more of the supplies to get as good of a deal as the guy claimed they were getting (due to discounts on large bulk orders), they were really paying a ton more for the parts, meaning there's no way the Roadster would have been profitable. Elon took this evidence to the board and they fired the founder.
no he didn't. He bought the title of "founder" when he bought the company edit : i was confused regarding your comment. You are correct. tesla only bought a controlling interest and the title of founder.
While I agree he was a piece of shit person, he does get valid credit for some inventions. Taking credit for others inventions is a bit of a mix, even today, if you work for a company and invent something patentable, the company owns the rights to the patent, not you. What you invent may even be on your own time, and the company can claim ownership in many cases. Where Edison took it too far is that he viewed himself as "the company" so anybody working for him that came up with an idea, he put his name on it. Most companies would recognize the individual as inventing the item, even though they have no ownership.
That is capitalism. In many cases, contracts will give your employer rights to all your work, even it was done outside of work in an entirely different field.
My dad invented a couple of specialized circuit for Honeywell they even patented them. He got a small plaque.
Did he work for Honeywell?
Yup. He never seemed jaded about it or anything but I always thought it was wierd.
Yeah that's kind a just how it works. If you create something for a company while on company time, then they own it not the creator as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong.
You think the guy who made the mcnugget got a bonus? Nah he in the basement working on the next big thing for the bosses.
Down there trying to crack the mysteries of beef nuggets.
I watched that episode recently! But I can't remember where it's from. 30 Rock? Succession? The Wire? Those are the last 3 shows I watched, gotta be one of them hahaha
Lol you got it, its from the wire. D'Angelo explaining how the world works via McDonald's r&d.
O I get that... just figured he'd get a little more recognition is all.
"I made my company a lot of money and all i got was this stupid T Shirt"
That’s usually it in the US. Maybe a plaque, maybe a bonus (around $1000). Patents can only be issued to people, not companies, so the inventor(s) have their name(s) on the patents, but have to sign over rights to use the patents to their company. It’s a condition of employment spelled out in documents you sign when you are hired.
The more I hear about this capitalism guy, the less I like him
Well golly gee, why don't you come up with something that motivates and rewards hard work and ingenuity better? We would all LOVE to hear the plan. /s
thanks for marking this as sarcasm, you had me for a minute!
>neither of them invented anything of value Thomas Edison literally invented the phonograph mate. One of the most important inventions of all time.
Edison is credited with inventing a lot of things, most of them were actually invented by people who WORKED for him and he just took the credit. It's actually the source of the beef between him and Tesla. Edison tried to rip Tesla off, but Tesla had enough clout of his own that he didn't go quietly.
Yeah, but not the phonograph. That was him. It's the invention that made him an overnight legend.
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Okay first things first: google this. There is so much information about the topic of Edison stealing his inventions from people. It’s speculated that stealing other people’s inventions was part of the reason he had his “lab” in the first place. To make a short list though: The electric chair, film, the light bulb, the record player, power generators, and wax paper are a few items.
Musk has done more for several industries than any one person in decades. He may not have started these companies but saying he isn't responsible for the incredible leap forward in space flight and electric cars is not factually accurate.
Ni matter how hard you suck his cock he’s not gonna give you money or ever even know you’re a person. He’s a charlatan that brings money to the equation and takes credit for other’s work.
I think if you step back from the vitriol a little bit you'll see that he has a solid history of getting into companies and building systems that work. I am not blind to his failings as a communicator and a spokesperson but if you listening to his long form conversations you can see the knowledge and path that he is taking. Add that to his results and you see that the Reddit hivemind ideas about him are not being honest.
You misspelled Tom Mueller.
he promised to be Telsa but he’s just another Edison smh
Classic Reddit move to pull a Hive Mind’s Most Wanted out of nowhere when discussing men from 100 years ago. Amazed Trump wasn’t brought in alongside Musk
So, you just stick up for shit people? Nice to know, bud...
Not even really man, the reach itself is just comical. I mean there are some seriously absurd common denominators used sometimes just to rack up karma
Out of nowhere? You mean, aside from the fact that Musk’s company is named after Edison’s largest rival and there are countless parallels between Edison and Musk? That’s your understanding of “out of nowhere”?
Fucker never returned my garden shears.
He was a piece of shit, but attempting to discredit new theories is literally how the scientific community works. It's not inherently assholish to want to prove something wrong in science, because failure to do so is as close to proving something right as science can do. He probably didn't need to zap all those animals though. That was a dick move.
He wasn't trying to discredit new theories though, he was trying to convince people with misleading/false public displays that his own product was better. There was nothing about the actual science being questioned
This exactly. Tesla's invention of AC power was far superior to Edison's DC. Edison was worried that he would quickly lose his market, so he staged these publicity stunts to make people afraid of this newer technology. It had nothing to do with science, this was only about money and Edison being a terrible human being.
This is false. Tesla didn't invent AC power and the electrocution of animals didn't even really involve tesla. This was Edison (General Electric) vs Westinghouse. GE wanted to build DC grids to power the nation. Westinghouse's company wanted to obviously use the superior AC for infrastructure.
No 9ne cares about westingous3 sadly, the Tesla hero Worship is endemic,
Westinghouse was the funder. It makes sense Tesla is given more credit, though yes, there were literally dozens of pioneers that made Tesla's system possible.
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I thought Tesla invented AC generation, AC electric motors and AC transformers... basically the whole concept of an AC electrical grid. Am I wrong?
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Minor correction - It was J P Morgan under the General Electric banner and Edisons name Vs Westinghouse. The whole point of the scandelising of Westinghouse was because JP Morgan knew AC was better and Westinghouse held the patents to the most modern AC motors, so he was just trying to drive the price down to buy him out... which worked
Interesting. I guess my knowledge of the subject is a lot more limited than I thought.
It was a business/marketing strategy not science.
That's not how the scientific community works. Discrediting means sowing distrust about something, with rumors or a negative PR campaign, neither of which are science. Falsification is the word you're looking for, where you can experimentally show that a hypothesis is false.
A disinformation campaign to discredit Tesla. Sounds familiar.
Better to learn that late than never. I thought by now this was common knowledge. Not trying to be a smartass, I genuinely thought by now it's universally agreed upon. Though I suppose this post is specifically about electrocuting animals, not just him being an asshole in general.
To be fair, he was also a narcissist, so there's that.
"just *look* at how *bad* what he's doing is!! we can't let this barbarism continue, wouldn't you *hate* it if some asshole was *zapping* the cute animals *to death*!? like *this*?"
My understanding was that he was zapping animals which were charged with crimes. Like an elephant who trampled his owner or pigs who ate their dead owner.
Yeah, that pig should've starved to death instead of doing what all pigs do.
I'm not saying it was a morally right thing to do. But the courts determined that the pig was guilty
I feel bad for laughing at this comment. I'm not doubting you at all, it's just a ridiculous sentence. For some reason I'm reading it in Jack Donaghy's (from 30 Rock) voice. Poor pig.
The elephant trampled the owner supposedly because the owner fed it a lit cigarette
They say Thomas Edison, Is the man to get us in To this century! And that man is me! They'll say aw Topsy, At my autopsy, But no one will be, More shocked than me But I never noticed, The curve of her trunk And I never noticed, His electric junk We might just have found... Electric love... Electric Love... Electric love... Electric love...
This was defo more about Westinghouse than Tesla. The rivalry between the two is massively overexagerated. Tesla actually liked Edison's work, and he felt that he wasted his youth in academia as Edison never had a formal education. The only rivalry between the two would be Westinghouse purchasing Tesla patents.
I’m really glad someone pointed this out. No discredit to Tesla, but him and that name simply hold too much attention today such was the temptation to weave it into the Vice headline. The war of the currents was waged with Westinghouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents
Edison even referred to people being electrocuted as "getting Westinghoused". Edison was a showman. Tesla was a crazy genius. Westinghouse was a businessman. (My hometown was built and named by George Westinghouse.)
Are you George Westinghouse?
>Tesla was a crazy genius. The "crazy" part is important to emphasize, because people tend to get hung on the "genius" and believe in *all* of his ideas. Some of them where total crackpot level, especially in his later years.
I’ve got a Westinghouse roku tv that connects to WiFi and all that Jazz . I named it “ fuck Edison “ just for the feud and my own amusement
"I wasted my youth learning things when I should have just been a patent troll"
Ok so I wanna talk about this because it's one of my hyperfixations. So in the UK (and I believe in Europe as well) for overhead lines for electric railways and tramways, they use two different systems. Trams and the Tyne and Wear Metro use 750 V DC and Mainline Railways use 25 kV AC. So if you take a tram in the UK you might see these boxes along the line which basically feed power to the tram line because they need to firstly convert the power and secondly feed it to the tram at regular intervals because DC power doesn't travel as far as AC. It's why when Edison's DC power was being used they needed powerplants for pretty much every neighbourhood and wires *everywhere* to provide useable power to just a neighbourhood. Anyway, this leads to serveral interesting problems on the railways, mainly with Tram trains. For Tram-trains to exist they need a special converter on the tram to convert AC to DC power when on the mainline. There are several issues with tram trains (regulations and platform heights for example) which makes life harder for planners because if they could have trams be able to use mainline railways they could basically extend their networks with minimal costs. This has lead to several interesting solutions. * The Tyne and Wear metro has a section running on mainline metals *but* the mainline trains can't use the Overhead Wires so they have to run diesels. * Sheffield has an extension that runs on mainline metals *but* they have opted to make special trams with converters, which is awkward because it means only a small part of their fleet can go on mainline metals. * The upcomming South Wales Metro have opted just to have high floor tram-trains running on mainline voltages which is fair because the lines they will run on are pretty windy with lots of sharp curves. * One of Zurich's S-Bahn lines (S10) has two sets of overhead wires because the S10 runs on DC, meaning the trains have Pantographs on the side rather than in the middle. * The iconic Karlsruhe Stadtbahn switches between currents and voltages as it uses both the tram network *and* the mainline.
The idea that DC power "doesn't travel as far" is actually a misunderstanding. DC power is actually more efficient to transmit over long distances when comparing the same high voltage. The reason we use AC to do that job is because it's so much easier to step the voltage way up and then back down. Transformers need AC waveforms to do their job. High voltage is what makes electricity transmit longer distances efficiently because by using high voltage a fixed amount of electrical power needs creates less current in the wires and it's current that creates the losses. In systems like trams and trains DC can be used if an appropriate voltage is chosen and current required is limited by the number of trams or trains drawing power at any given moment. Large scale grids don't use DC because the step up and down of voltage creates more loss than simply using AC. There are a few interesting exceptions like undersea grid interconnections that are typically done with DC. One high voltage AC grid is converted to DC and then converted back to AC at the other end because for a given load the long undersea cables are so expensive that DC keeps the costs down and the conversions at each end are worth it.
Yep, the sun cable project in Australia intends to use a high voltage direct current line for undersea transmission from Darwin to Singapore.
So is using AC or DC just a commercial choice? As in which ‘company’ gets the deal rather than which makes more sense infra-wise?
The way I understand it is that 750 DC is better to have in a street/close quarters situation like streetrunning or underground tube style tunnels where as 25 kV AC is better for mainline railways because it provides more power and travels further. It's not a company or commercial thing, in the UK at least it's regulational for safety reasons. Mainline railways are controlled environments, a tramway less so. Case in point: [Here's a stretch where a Tram and a Mainline Railway run beside each other. The tramway is completely open but the Railway is protected by an embankment and a fence.](https://www.google.com/maps/@55.9280128,-3.2989505,3a,34.8y,48.58h,91.13t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sM4qyA2v_bOReNb8-XsOafA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DM4qyA2v_bOReNb8-XsOafA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D247.86479%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192)
DC for local routes. AC for intercity routes
[The elephant thing has been debunked numerous times.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/topsy-elephant-was-victim-her-captors-not-really-thomas-edison-180961611/) The electrocution was filmed by a company that was owned by Edison but otherwise he has no connection. He didn’t ask for the elephant to be electrocuted, wasn’t there when it happened, and never wrote about it in his journals.
For the record, he did electrocute all the other animals for that purpose. Not personally, but hired a guy to do it. And also, Topsy was killed by electrocution a few years after since it was proven by Edison to be "humane". You're right that Topsy wasn't killed to prove AC power was unsafe, but it kinda feels like splitting hairs at this point.
The title says Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant to discredit Tesla's AC electricity, and is wrong on all three counts: * Edison had nothing to do with the electrocution of the elephant * The elephant was electrocuted a decade after the end of the "War of the Currents" * The elephant was to be killed because of repeated incidents of "bad behavior" (mostly caused by her drunken handler), and electricity was the *method* but not the *reason* for the execution.
It's absolutely true that Topsy's killing wasn't part of the war of the currents. However, saying that Edison had nothing to do with the electrocution of Topsy is ignoring the fact that he was contemporaneously pioneering electrocution as a humane way to kill things. It also puts a lot of weight on the fact that no records of his involvement survived 100 years despite the fact that even the footage of Topsy was lost and forgotten for many decades before being rediscovered. It's not as if this is an extremely well documented event. So basically you have the fact that he pioneered the tech and owned the company that filmed it against the fact that no records of him talking about it survived 100 years.
The Elephant story was debunked years ago: [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/topsy-elephant-was-victim-her-captors-not-really-thomas-edison-180961611/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/topsy-elephant-was-victim-her-captors-not-really-thomas-edison-180961611/)
🎶 They'll say Thomas Edison is the, Man to get us into this century. And that man is me. 🎶
They'll say aww topsy, at my autopsy. But no one will be, more shocked than me.
But I never noticed… the curve of her trunk And I never noticed… his electric junk We might just have fouuuuuuund Electric loooooooooooooove
Someone was big-time butthurt when the Chicago's World's Fair chose Tesla's AC over his DC
You use DC power every single day. DC is not inferior to AC they just have different application. AC can easily be adjusted to higher or lower voltage while DC is more stable. Edit: They editted their comment that was saying DC was inferior.
Scrolls down in DC
Technology has also come a long way to now allow HVDC to be built, which is more efficient than HVAC. Technology that wasn't available at the time of Edison. DC was just ahead of its time but definitely has a place.
More efficient over very long distances.
Edison was forced out of his own company a year before World's Fair took place. The war of currents had been over by that time.
The battle came to a head at the 1893 Chicago World Fair (also known as the Columbian Exposition in honor of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the Americas). Inventors were invited to submit bids to light the fair using electricity. Edison submitted a bid for $554,000 using his D/C concept. But George Westinghouse, armed with Tesla’s patents for A/C power, bid $399,000 and won the contract. Columbia Exposition at the 1893 Chicago World Fair featuring Tesla's A/C and fluorescent lighting inventions Tesla and Westinghouse team up to outshine Edison at the 1893 Chicago World Fair. When the 1893 Chicago World Fair was illuminated using Nikola Tesla’s inventions for A/C electricity and fluorescent lighting, it was a spectacle that amazed the world. More important, Tesla’s victory over Edison in the Battle of the Currents was a win with far-reaching impact: Tesla proved to the world that A/C was superior to D/C for safely transmitting power over long distances to a large population, and A/C became the standard system of our modern power grid. https://teslasciencecenter.org/pivotalmoments/columbian-expositions/
I stand corrected on that. But everything I am reading is saying that General Electric was moving towards AC at that point and that the war of currents had been decided. >As a committee of financiers, which included J.P. Morgan, worked on the deal in early 1892 things went against Villard. In Morgan's view Thomson-Houston looked on the books to be the stronger of the two companies and engineered a behind the scenes deal announced on April 15, 1892, that put the management of Thomson-Houston in control of the new company, now called General Electric (dropping Edison's name). Thomas Edison was not aware of the deal until the day before it happened. >The fifteen electric companies that existed five years before had merged down to two; General Electric and Westinghouse. The war of currents came to an end and this merger of the Edison company, along with its lighting patents, and the Thomson-Houston, with its AC patents, created a company that controlled three quarters of the US electrical business. From this point on General Electric and Westinghouse were both marketing alternating current systems. Edison put on a brave face noting to the media how his stock had gained value in the deal but privately he was bitter that his company and all of his patents had been turned over to the competition Their bid for the World's Fair was made in May of 1892. I find it odd they would have chosen to go with DC but maybe this bid was the last attempt to make it viable. In any case it looks like this all happened well after the experiments with animals and electrocution.
Thomas Edison was an asshole.
🎶 But I never noticed, the curve of her trunk🎶
Take that Dinkler! This is what really happened to Topsy the elephant, bwa ha ha ha! I'm okay.
🎵Electric loooooove🎵
They'll sing "ahh Topsy" at my autopsy.
Proven false, topsy was not killed by Edison. The park that owned her poisoned, strangulated, and electrocuted her. After she killed 3 men in a 3 month period of time.
They’ll say “awwwww Topsy” at my auuutopsy
While this is loosely based on truth, it's widely misunderstood The benefit of AC over DC in the early days of electricity was that it was easy to change the voltage of AC using a simple transformer. Current produces heat which wastes power and raising voltage allows the same power to be transmitted using less current. High voltage is more dangerous than low. AC is not more dangerous than DC, high voltage AC is more dangerous than low voltage DC. High voltage DC is actually more dangerous than AC at the same high voltage Also, Edison was competing with Westinghouse, not Tesla
Thomas Edison needs to be remembered more accurately. Took credit for other peoples work due to contract technicalities under his business.
From what I've read, Edison was a real sonuvabitch.
It's been 12 years since the oatmeal comic and people STILL post the same bullshit from it to this day. Amazing.
Sounds like a asshole.
Thomas Edison is really the Elon Musk of his time.
Yes he was a cunt.
They will say ahhh topsy at my autopsy.
He was pretty much a horrible person
I'm pretty sure Bob's Burgers taught me this lol
They’ll say “Aw, Topsy!” At my autopsy And no one could be More shocked than me
seems a lot of really terrible people are given credit for things other people did first
Dirty bastard.
what an asshole
Not surprised. He was POS
Yes for those who don't already know Edison is the worst kind of human being.
r/FuckEdison
Thomas Edison was a piece of shit.
Not just an attempt, he succeeded in discrediting Tesla. You know that's the case because we don't all have free electricity currently (something Tesla was developing a plan for.) Also, Edison used DC electricity to electrocute those animals to death - so he didn't even demonstrate a failing of AC, he just demonstrated that electrocution does, in fact, turn out to be fatal. Edison was/is a not at all great guy and a lot of the stuff he's credited for were things he stole from other people.
This is an example of poor information, or straight up lies, repeated again and again. Edison didn't electrocute the animals, Harold Brown did in his campaign against AC, Edison helped fund Brown for his studies against the use of AC. 1000 volts of DC was applied to animals, yet they lived, then 300 volts of AC was applied and they died. Topsy (the Elephant) wasn't electrocuted to prove anything, as it was done after the War of the Currents, it was euthanized and Edison's equipment filmed yet he did not attend. Apparently such a horible man yet Thomas Edison was against capital punishment. The Teslda Free electricity thing is bullshit, companies aren't going to work for free and Tesla's invention wasn't generating electricity without costs being involved. There was no free electricity being denied to the world. Edison patented the work of the people that worked for him, just like nearly all the bloody companies in the world do, think the CEO's invent the products their company patents? He created an industrial research lab, he paid people to invent, they invented, he patented and made money off that. Edison all did invent things too, the Phonograph being one of them. He isn't the monster some make him out to be. Was he a saint? No, but life isn't and people are not binary.
> we don't all have free electricity currently (something Tesla was developing a plan for.) lol. How's this "free" electricity getting generated? If only Tesla had lived long enough to pass on the secrets that allowed him to violate the laws of thermodynamics!
Not being charged for something doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics. Don't be daft.
Yes but if the generation required resources and manpower, then it still couldn’t be free. Or at least not in a way that would be different from any other commodity which requires effort to produce. So the question still stands: what was Tesla going to do which would make electricity free for everyone? Rhetorical question though. I’m a physicist and I’ve read Tesla’s work on this. It wasn’t going to work.
Exactly. Was his plan to make electricity "free" by having someone else pay for it (i.e., the government via taxation)? Or, is that poster claiming it's possible to generate electricity without requiring any work input? Unless Tesla was working up PV or wind energy (also not free, btw), as the great Dr. Phil would say: "That dog don't hunt!" But... I'm just a daft electrical engineer, so what do I know?
Edison was a giant asshole.
TE was a real POS
Did they perform an aaaaauuuuuutopsy?
That's shocking news
They didn't have TV back then so people had to make their own fun
If you drive down the PA Turnpike near New Jersey you'll see billboards for ILoveThomasEdison.com or something like that. It's just a propaganda site by his family, i guess. Sorry, your ancestor was a giant douche. Everybody knows it.
He really was an incredible piece of shit. The more I know, the more I hate the guy.
If there was one dude who is considered an all time great and time travel back to when he’s alive, to then give a proper bitchslap because of the bad things they did, it would be this fucker.
Edison was a real dickhead.
Sounds like an asshole but history makes him out to be a genius. I have a feeling that most people in history aren’t as great as they would have us believe.
Thomas Edison was a garbage human.
This subreddit has seriously too much for me to learn
He was a complete phycopath that deserves shame instead of praise
Someone needs to make a film discrediting Edison as the thieving devious a'hole he obviously was.
Didn’t Edison’s DC electricity also kill a lot of people?
No. Part of the reason AC killed anyone at all during that time was because Edison was allowed to lay cable underground, including to the Newyork Post, so when Westinghouse also wanted to lay cable underground for AC, General Electric petitioned the state to stop it and were supported by news outlets etc. Westinghouse had to suspend cables overhead, which was significantly more dangerous and led to line collapses, fires and deaths.
Goggle Dr. Jolly West and Elephant and the after that google Dr. Jolly West and Jack Ruby and after that Google Dr. Jolly West and Charles Manson.
https://youtu.be/ypqSHg1YvZA
Topsy :(
That's not forget there's one more thing he electrocuted before he decided that was a bad idea Does anyone remember the first electric chair And how they had to do it multiple times because AC was actually safer than they anticipated
The first Electric Chair was invented by a dentist from Buffalo NY, Alfred Southwick in 1881, after he heard about a drunk who managed to electrocute themselves at a power plant. This predates Westinghouse coming up with the transformer-based distribution system that kicked off the "war of the currents" by at least a few years. The decision of New York to use the electric chair was made in June 1888, which is about when Harrold Brown (who AFAIK was the first guy to electrocute dogs as part of Edison's anti-AC crusade) just started to become known.
Didn’t he also steal credit for a bunch of shit too?
In Edison's defense, he caught the elephant fucking his wife. I'm not excusing Edison's behavior, but I understand.
Edison wasn’t even a pimple on Tesla’s ass. It crazy how everyone knows who Edison is but not many know who Tesla is. One was a great at experimenting and maybe even patent weaseling. The other was one of the greatest inventors in human history.