History & Timeline:

1847: Thomas Edison is born
in Milan / Ohio / USA as the seventh and last child
of a humble but not poor family.
Thomas was described as a very curious child.
He exaspereated his teachers and was finally educated by his mother,
Nancy Edison.
Thomas Edison started his career as a telegraph operator.

1869: June 1, was granted the patent for
Edisons first invention which was related to telegraphy,
an electric vote recorder.


1876: Edison builts a Laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey
using the money he had received from Western Union for selling a Patent.
The Laboratory was an "invention factory"
producing a minor invention every month and a major invention every six month.

1877: Invention of the Phonogram. Edison was invited to the White House
to present it to President Rutherford Hayes.

1878: Edison Electric Light Company is incorporated.


1879: October 21, after endless testing
the first commercially practical incandescent lamp is finally invented,
the carbon filament lamp succeds a forty-hour duration test.
December 31 / New Years Eve first public demonstration of Electric light
at Menlo Park.


1880: January 27 Edison was granted the US Patent 223,898 for the light bulb,
that paved the way for modern life.

1883: Incorporation of Thomson Houston Electric Company by Charles Coffin.
The company has no relations with Edison and holds different valuable patents.


1889: September 10 Edison visits the Eiffel Tower in Paris
and records a simple Video going up the elevator.
The guestbook of the Tower keeps the following message:
To M Eiffel the Engineer the brave builder
of so gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering
from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers
including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu, Thomas Edison.


1890: Formation of Edison General Electric.


1892: Merger of Edison General Electric and Thomas Houston Electric
giving birth to The General Electric Company.
Charles Coffin becomes the first president.


1895: Dickson experimental sound film - the first moovie combining sound and image

1896: General Electric is made component of the 12 companies forming the
Dow Jones index.


1899: August 15, Henry Ford leaved Edison to start the automobile company Ford.


1900: August 25, Thomas Edison films the Expo Universelle in Paris.



1900: GE Monogram is registered as a trademark.
1902: Arrival of the Electric Fan .... it has an influcence on the GE Logo

1919: Foundation of RCA (Radio Corporation of America)



1921: October, opening f the GE News Bureau

1925: Thomas Edison is on the cover or Time magazine.


1931: October 18, Edison dies in West Orange, New Jersey, USA at age 84
holding 1093 patents in his name and creating
the technologies behind three enormous 21st century industries:
electrical power, recorded music and movies.


1973: Thomas Edison inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron.
The Hall includes nearly 500 Inventors from a period of over 3 centuries
including the founders of other companies on the VB.com Fame List
like Amar Bose founder of (Bose), or William Hewlett (founder of HP).


1981: Jack Welch becomes CEO
and applies new streamlighting strategies to the company.
Welch's strategy was that a company should be
either n° 1 or n° 2 in a particular industry, or else leave it completely.
The GE stockvalue increases dramatically from 1$ in 1980
to a high of 59.88 $ in August 2000
making GE the world's most valuable company (until 2005 february 18)

1986: August 5, Registraton of the GE.com internat domain,
one of the earliest registrations in the history of the Internet.


2001: Septembre, Jeffrey Immelt becomes CEO.
Born in 1956 he arrives at a moment the GE stock is falling.

2002: Formation of GE Wind Energy









2009: GE cloud commercial



2012: GE Charge Stations for electic vehicals .... more

Name, Logo, Internet Domains:

Unlike other companys owning iconic Monograms,
General Electric was very internet savvy
and not late to register the matching internet domain GE.com.

The date of registration, August 5 1986,
is a symbol of exeptional technology awareness,
in fact General Electric was one of the very first companies (the 20th company)
to register an Internet Domain in history,
and the third one (after HP.com and TI.com) to register a Two Letter Domain.
At that time almost nobody knew about the Internet.



General Electric is listed on position n°3
on the VB.com Domain Hall of Fame.
See also the history of the GE.com website.

The domain General Electric.com was registered 1995 september 12.
General Electric has an impressive portfolio of over 18,300 domains.