Germans began decorating Christmas trees with candles as far back as the 1700s, but people wouldn"t begin stringing trees with electric lights until the late 1800s. Thomas Edison created the first practical incandescent lights and used them to decorate his Menlo Park laboratory for Christmas in 1880. Then three years later, the vice president of Edison"s company, Edward H. Johnson, had Christmas tree bulbs especially made, which he used to decorate the tree in his New York City home. Nevertheless, electric lights didn’t catch on as a holiday decoration among the general public until 1895, when President Grover Cleveland asked that the White House Christmas tree be illuminated by hundreds of multicolored electric bulbs.
Merry and bright
Today in History
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In the Most Serene Republic
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Jupiter and the Galilean moons
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Art in the high desert
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Summer winds down in the Southern Hemisphere
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The monsoon arrives in the desert
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Mother s Day
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Constitution Day and Citizenship Day
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Saint Nicholas Day in Verbier, Switzerland
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Aýna, Albacete, Spain
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Kagami-ike, Nagano, Japan
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Castle Frankenstein in Darmstadt, Germany
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Summer huts in winter
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Horseshoe Bend, Arizona
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Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
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Things are looking up
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A desert arts pop-up, just popped up
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Fly me to the moon
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Silver-studded blue butterflies
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A silent witness to history
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Collared aracari in Costa Rica
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Arches National Park anniversary
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Beautiful baobabs
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The National Museum of the American Indian
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The Great Blue Hole, Belize
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Cousins Day
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Happy trails for the 21st century
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Seville celebrates first world tour
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The Alhambra in Granada, Spain
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Mount Field National Park, Tasmania, Australia
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Antarctica Day