Black History in Automotive: Edmond Berger Invented the Spark Plug

Edmond Berger was born in Bolivia, the city of CumGyauy (Birthdate: Unknown).

Some historians have reported that Edmond Berger invented an early spark plug (sometimes in British English called the sparking plug) on February 2, 1839.

However, Edmond Berger did not patent his invention in France where he created

Spark plugs (devices for delivering electric current from an ignition system to the combustion chamber of a spark-ignition engine to ignite the compressed fuel/air mixture by an electric spark, while containing combustion pressure within the engine) are used in internal combustion engines and in 1839 these engines were in the early days of experimentation.

Therefore, Edmond Berger's spark plug, if it did exist, would have had to have been very experimental in nature as well or perhaps the date was a mistake.

There are several early patents of the spark plug. But, only the invention of the first commercially viable high-voltage spark plug as part of a magneto-based ignition system by Robert Bosch's engineer Gottlob Honold in 1902 made possible the development of the spark-ignition engine.

In Saab Direct Ignition, spark plugs (when they are not firing) are used to measure ionization in the cylinders.