The woman sleeping peacefully in a chair with a book on her lap, started to cough. A crying child in the bedroom woke her up. She opened her eyes and could hardly see what was going on. The smoke invaded her lungs and started to sting her eyes. She could not forget the baby. She ran without hesitation into the next room and found the baby in the bed. She ran to the door but the smoke was too thick to see anything. She heard the cries and screams of her neighbors and used them to lead her to an opening. The crying women got out of the house and into the fresh air. The fire had sadly caught the houses next to hers on fire. Soon, her whole neighborhood was engulfed in flames and surrounded by smoke. Many more neighborhoods suffered the same fate, as fires engulfed their homes, when the woman left a candle burning while she read so she could see.
Burning buildings, blazing fires, and darkness plagued world citizens for centuries until a solution in 1879 was brought. Thomas Edison, "The Wizard of Menlo Park, was an amazing inventor who changed the world forever and put an end to many dilemmas with his 1879 invention of the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb. Light bulbs gave people the gift of artificial light. With the invention of light, people were not limited to sunlight hours. People could read, write, study, and work better with electric light because the light would allow them to focus better throughout their work.
Fires caused from candle lighting was put to an end. If a fire broke out in a city, it could destroy and burn down homes and important buildings. City government would be disrupted and many people would be homeless. Fires would cause chaos and problems throughout the country. The Great Fire of 1788, in New Orleans, left the city destroyed and in a state of confusion. Many important buildings such as the Police Station, The cabildo, the grainery, and over 800 homes were burnt down due to a candle catching a curtain on fire.
