Did Thomas Edison actually invent the light bulb, or did he just get the best publicist?

The episode traces the real history of the light bulb from Humphry Davy's arc lamp experiments in the early 1800s through the work of Joseph Swan and others who developed working incandescent designs before Edison ever entered the picture. It covers what Edison actually contributed, how his electrical distribution system changed everything, and why the myth of the lone inventor persists so stubbornly in American history.

The invention of the light bulb is less a eureka moment and more a century-long group project with a very uneven credit system.

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