In 1877, Thomas Alva Edison (1847 – 1931) invented the tin foil phonograph – a machine that recorded sound by indenting a sheet of tin foil into a groove in a cylinder. A later wax version was ...

Thomas Alva Edison is an unparalleled figure in the history of ... To his astonishment, the device worked on the first attempt. On December 7, 1877, Edison conducted the first demonstration of the ...