Werner von Siemens, German Inventor

Ernst Werner von Siemens (December 13, 1816 -December 6, 1892) was a German inventor and industrialist. He left school without finishing his education, but joined the army to undertake training in engineering. Siemens was thought of as a good soldier, receiving various medals. Upon returning home from war, he put his mind to other uses. He invented a telegraph that used a needle to point to the right letter, instead of using Morse code and founded the company Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens and Halske in 1847. The company was internationalized soon after its founding. He built the world's first electric elevator in 1880. His company produced the tubes with which Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen investigated x-rays. He was ennobled in 1888, becoming Werner von Siemens. He retired from his company in 1890 and died in 1892 at the age of 75. His name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. The company he founded, now known as Siemens AG, is still one of the largest electrotechnological firms in the world

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1816 Industrialist Sibling Siemens

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