DailyKenn.com — Fox News and history appear to be at odds.
The right-leaning news giant published a report claiming Garrett A. Morgan invented the "the modern traffic signal."
"Morgan conceived and patented the three-signal traffic control in 1923," the report says.
Morgan's patent, however, was not the first. In fact, traffic lights had been in use years prior.
Bloomberg.com, for example, published an article in 2014 hailing the centennial of the first traffic light. The signal was installed in Cleveland in 1914, nine years before Morgan's patent.
"It was based on a design by James Hoge, a Cleveland resident who submitted an application for a patent in September, 1913. Approved in 1918, his creation was the first electric traffic signal to be patented."
Lesson learned: Question history.
According to blackinventionmyths.com:
Invented by Garrett A. Morgan in 1923? No!
The first known traffic signal appeared in London in 1868 near the Houses of Parliament. Designed by JP Knight, it featured two semaphore arms and two gas lamps. The earliest electric traffic lights include Lester Wire's two-color version set up in Salt Lake City circa 1912, James Hoge's system (US patent #1,251,666) installed in Cleveland by the American Traffic Signal Company in 1914, and William Potts' 4-way red-yellow-green lights introduced in Detroit beginning in 1920. New York City traffic towers began flashing three-color signals also in 1920.
Garrett Morgan's cross-shaped, crank-operated semaphore was not among the first half-hundred patented traffic signals, nor was it "automatic" as is sometimes claimed, nor did it play any part in the evolution of the modern traffic light. For details see Inventing History: Garrett Morgan and the Traffic Signal.
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