The first child of Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel, Neil Armstrong was born at 12:31:39 a.m. on August 5, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio, a town outside Dayton.Stephen Armstrong worked for the Ohio government, and the family moved around the state repeatedly for the next 14 years, living in 16 different towns. Armstrong had two siblings, June and Dean. His father’s last forced move was to Wapakoneta in 1944. By this time, Armstrong was active in the Boy Scouts and he eventually earned the rank of Eagle Scout. As an adult, he would be recognized by the Boy Scouts of America with their Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award. In Wapakoneta, he attended Blume High School.

In 1947, Armstrong began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. He was only the second person in his family to attend college. He was also accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but the only engineer he knew (who had attended MIT) dissuaded him from attending, telling Armstrong that it was not necessary to go all the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts for a good education. His college tuition was paid for under the Holloway Plan; successful applicants committed to two years of study, followed by three years of service in the United States Navy, then completion of the final two years of the degree. At Purdue, he received average marks in his subjects, with a GPA that rose and fell over the eight semesters.

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Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. (1804–1896) (born in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, Canada) and Nancy Matthews Edison nee Elliott (1810–1871). His family was of Dutch origin.

In school, the young Edison’s mind often wandered, and his teacher the Reverend Engle was overheard calling him “addled.” This ended Edison’s three months of official schooling. He recalled later, “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.” His mother then home schooled him. Much of his education came from reading R.G. Parker’s School of Natural Philosophy.

The cause of Edison’s deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle ear infections. Edison around the middle of his career attributed the hearing loss to being struck on the ears by a train conductor when his chemical lab in a boxcar caught fire. In his later years he modified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in helping him onto a moving train, lifted him by the ears.

Edison’s family was forced to move to Port Huron, Michigan when the railroad bypassed Milan, but his life there was bittersweet. He sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit.

Edison became a telegraph operator after he saved three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train. Jimmie’s father, station agent J.U. MacKenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. After three months of training, Edison mastered the skill and was hired at a Western Union telegraph office. Edison’s deafness allegedly aided him because it blocked out noises and prevented Edison from hearing the telegrapher sitting next to him. One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey, home.

Some of his earliest inventions were related to telegraphy, including a stock ticker. Edison’s first patent was for the electric vote recorder, (U. S. Patent 90,646), which was granted on June 1, 1869.

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