The first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service in Roselle, New Jersey, just a year after Edison switched on the first steam-generating power station at the Holborn Viaduct in London, England.

In other words, while the vast majority of people alive today who were born in a first world country grew up with electric street lighting, it’s not that new. And when you consider the amount of time we’ve been on this planet from a scientific evidence point of view, it’s amazing how far technology has progressed since the delivery of the first stable feeds a little over 135 years ago …