BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for April 23.

Inventor Granville T. Woods was born.

He was known for devising a number of new electrical devices for the railroads. His inventions helped make rail travel safer and faster.

Woods studied engineering at night school and became a steam locomotive engineer. He earned his first patent in 1884 for an improved steam boiler furnace.

By 1878, he had become an engineer on the Ironsides, a British steamship. Within two years, he had become the ship's chief engineer.

In all of the positions that he held, Woods experienced discrimination. Unhappy with his inability to obtain higher positions, Woods moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he established his own machine shop in 1880.

He invented and patented Tunnel Construction for the electric railroad system, and was referred to by some as the "Black Edison".

In 2004, the New York City Transit Authority organized an exhibition on Woods which utilized bus and train depots, and an issue of four million MetroCards commemorating the inventor's achievements in pioneering the third rail.

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