360Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
On 7 March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a US patent for the telephone. Three days later, he spoke the first words over it to his assistant: 'Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you.' Telephone exchanges soon spread to cities worldwide, beginning the age of instant voice communication.
Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh in 1847 and later moved to North America, where he taught deaf students. His study of sound and speech led him to experiment with sending voices along wires.
Bell filed his patent application on 14 February 1876, the same day the inventor Elisha Gray filed a notice about a similar idea. Bell's patent was granted on 7 March 1876.
On 10 March, in his Boston laboratory, Bell spoke into his device, and his assistant Thomas Watson heard the words in another room.
Bell demonstrated the telephone at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia that summer. The first telephone exchange opened in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878, and the Bell Telephone Company grew rapidly. Within 50 years, millions of homes and businesses were connected, and the telephone network later became the backbone of the internet.
- 14 February 1876
- Patent application filed
- 7 March 1876
- Patent granted
- 10 March 1876
- First words spoken by telephone
- 1878
- First telephone exchange
Sources: Library of Congress · Britannica · Smithsonian.