Oh, Pioneers

Today marks the birth anniversary of Thomas Edison, who was born on this date in 1847. Edison may not have been the first moviemaker, but he was certainly one of the pioneers, and apparently made the earliest surviving copyrighted picture:



Now, since the movie was bade back in 1894, it's in the public domain, and if you go to the page that has the above video (or if the embedded video above doesn't show up), you'll see that a lot of the Edison shorts have made their way onto YouTube. Or, I suppose, you could watch Mickey Rooney as Young Tom Edison or Spencer Tracy is Edison, The Man. Why MGM decided to make two Edison biopics in the same year is beyond me.