It definitely wasn’t Thomas Edison, as your schooling would have you believe! In fact Humphry Davy first put an incandescent light bulb in use in 1809 – a full 70 years before Edison applied for his patent! What Edison did was create a bulb that would burn continuously (and even then he was sued by Joseph Swan for copying his design). As part of the settlement, Edison had to take Swan on as a partner in the original company called Ediswan. Edison eventually bought Swan out to form the company that became General Electric.