Who is Thomas Edison from Flashback: A Brief History of Film and what is their importance?

Thomas Edison was a great inventor. In the late 1800s, he was working on his phonograph when he heard about Pierre Meissonier's Zoetrope. As a result, he assigned his assistant, William Dixon, with the task of creating a machine that would act as a visual complement to his phonograph.

Together they created a prototype for the picture machine, although they couldn't come up with the correct material for the pictures to be displayed on. After two years, Edison heard about the flexible film base that was covered with photographic emulsion designed by George Eastman. Edison purchased a sample and quickly realized that they had found the solution to their dilemma. They made a working machine.

Although Edison invented the movie machine, he didn't think motion pictures would become popular on a wide scale, so he designed a machine where only one person could see a film at a time. It was called the Kinetoscope. After designing it, Edison moved on to other projects.