Sentence:  The discovery that movies are a form of fiction was made in the <WSD>early</WSD> years of this century and it was made chiefly by two men , a French magician , Georges Melies , and an American employee of Edison , Edwin S. Porter . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  at or near the beginning of a period of time or course of events or before the usual or expected time