Without the ingenious work of Thomas Alva Edison, the world may have been decades or even centuries behind where it is today. Without the light bulb, candles would still be lit in our windows and there could not be businesses and factories working twenty-four hours a day. With his motion pictures, there would be no movies and without the phonograph recording devices would not be able to record music, memories, or even reminders. Without the telegraph texting would have never even been thought of. Edison's business methods are still used today in a variety of businesses, though maybe not as extreme as killing an elephant or making the electric chair, but people now will pan things out first instead of stumbling across the idea. This is why Thomas Edison is one of the greatest turning points in history because with out him, many of the things we take for granted today like texting, movies, light bulbs, and even batteries would not have been possible without the building blocks Thomas Edison placed for us so we could achieve even greater things to come after him.