Milan

Because to your listeners, I really believe every year, Every single year, you should do something hard, whether it's learning how to run a 5K, whether it's going into therapy, writing a book, working, doing something hard.

And so I said, hey, I want to run from Akron, Ohio to Milan, Ohio, 65 miles.

Without hesitation, Scott said, let's do it.

So we trained, and we added another person, my pastor at my church, Brad, and we trained for 10 months.

So how did an ordinary boy from the American Midwest overcome ill health, profound hearing loss, and a lack of formal education to change the world? To what extent was he a lone genius, and how much did he rely on the work of others? And what did his blueprint for research and development contribute to defining the modern world? I'm John Hopkins, and this is Thomas Edison.

It is the 11th of February, 1847, a cold, snowy night in Milan, Ohio.

In a seven-room brick house built by her husband, a woman named Nancy gives birth for the seventh time in her life, a baby boy.

She and the father, Samuel, name him Thomas Alva Edison.

But the baby's proud parents and their three other surviving children will always call him Al.

Milan is a town that relies on its canal.

Samuel owns a small timber mill, processing logs shipped down from Canada.

But Milan's fortunes are on the wane.