Thomson multimedia timeline (1840-1900)
 
1840 - Edgar Brandt's birth.

1844 - Samuel Morse taped out " What hath God wrought " in a telegraph demonstration. Eugène Ducretet's Birth.

1853 - Elihu Thomson was born in Manchester, England, on March 29.

1865 - Thomas Edison invented the precursor to the phonograph while working as a telegraph operator at the Indianapolis Western Union office.

1871 - Thomson hired as Philadelphia Central High School chemistry professor.

1879 - From modest beginnings with fellow high school science professor Edwin Houston, Thomson built one of the leading electrical companies of the nineteenth century.

1889 - France organized the Exposition Universelle to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution. The Eiffel Tower has been built for the occasion. The major innovation was electricity. Thomson-Houston, set up by Elihu Thomson and Edwin M. Houston, both physicists, claimed an award at the exposition.

1891 - Edison patented the motion picture camera. David Sarnoff was born in Russia.

1892 - General Electric was formed with merger of Thomson-Houston and Edison General Electric Companies.

1893 - Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (CFTH) was established in Paris. CFTH installed a streetcar (tram) system using overhead trolleys and lines for the first time in France in the coastal city of Le Havre.

1894 - Eldridge Johnson established a small machine shop in Camden, New Jersey.

1895 - Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian electrical engineer, transmitted the first wireless signal.

1897 - Eugène Ducretet made the first French wireless set.

1898 - Eugène Ducretet set up a link between the Eiffel Tower and the Panthéon, 4 Kms away.

1899 - Painter Francis Barraud painted his brother's dog, Nipper, inquisitively listening to the horn of an early phonograph, "His Master's Voice". Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America is created.