Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call from a laboratory in downtown Boston on this day, March 10, 1876.
“Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you,” Bell wrote in his own account of the first words transmitted through the new technology.
“To my delight, he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said,” Bell added.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, MARCH 9, 1959, BARBIE MAKES HER WORLD FASHION DEBUT AT THE NEW YORK TOY FAIR
“I asked him to repeat the words. He replied, 'You said, 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.' Then we changed places and I heard in S [the speaker] while Mr. Watson read some passages from a book on mouthpiece M. It was certainly true that the articulated sounds came from S. The effect was loud but confused and muffled.”
The site of his world-changing work is commemorated with plaques in downtown Boston.
American inventor Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) with one of his inventions, around 1910. Bell designed the first intelligible electronic voice transmission and patented the telephone, and was a founding member and president of the National Geographic Society. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
His assistant, Thomas Watson, offered a slightly different version of the first words spoken over the phone: “Mr. Watson, come here, I need you,” one of the world's most famous cronies wrote in his diary.
“Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” —Alexander Graham Bell on the first phone call
Anyway, the world suddenly became a much smaller place.
Bell's personal story, innate curiosity, and talent made him uniquely qualified for what has become a historic moment in human history.
“Born in Scotland, Bell had a lifelong interest in the nature of sound,” Wired.com wrote.
“He was born into a family of speech teachers, and both his mother and his wife were hard of hearing.”
Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson at 5 Exeter Place, Boston, in March 1887. (Getty Images)
His experience, coupled with a rapidly changing technological world, made Bell the right person at the right time.
“While apparently working in 1875 on a device to send multiple telegraph signals over the same cable by using harmonics, he heard a tinkling sound,” Wired adds.
“This led him to investigate whether his electrical device could be used to transmit the sound of a human voice.”
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, JANUARY 9, 2007, STEVE JOBS INTRODUCES THE APPLE IPHONE AT MACWORLD IN SAN FRANCISCO
While Bell is known to have made the first telephone call, the title of inventor of the telephone has long been disputed.
Elisha Gray of Ohio competed feverishly with Bell on the same technology.
“On February 14, 1876, Gray filed with the United States Patent Office a notice (an advertisement for an invention he hoped to soon patent) that described an apparatus 'for telegraphically transmitting vocal sounds,'” Oberlin College writes of his student.
Bell was awarded the title of inventor of the telephone after years of litigation, although the determination remains “debatable.” – Oberlin University
“Unbeknownst to Gray, Bell had only two hours earlier applied for an actual patent on a device to achieve the same end. However, it was later discovered that the device described in Gray's warning would have worked, while the one in the Bell patent no. have.”
Bell was awarded the title of inventor of the telephone after years of litigation, although the determination remains “debatable,” Oberlin writes.
Elisha Gray, American inventor, presenting the warning for his telephone, 1876 (circa 1890). Gray (1835-1901) arrived at the United States Patent Office at four in the afternoon on February 14, 1876, just two hours after Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) presented his own warning about a phone. From Les Nouvelles Conquetes de la Science by Louis Figuier (Paris, around 1890). (Oxford Scientific Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)
The technology pioneered by Bell and Gray quickly exploded across the country and around the world, at an electrifying speed.
The Bell Telephone Company was founded in Boston on July 9, 1877, with the inventor's father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, as a partner.
MEET THE AMERICAN WHO REPORTED THE FIRST SENSATIONAL UFO ENCOUNTERS, THE PURITAN LEADER JOHN WINTHROP
The first outdoor telephone cable was installed between the office of Boston businessman Charles Williams Jr. and his home in Somerville, three miles away, also in 1877.
Telephone numbers replaced individual names in 1879, according to the Independent Association of Telecommunications Pioneers.
The first public telephone was installed in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1900. The association estimates that in 1918 there were approximately 10 million Bell system telephones in service throughout the United States.
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER
The first transatlantic calls from New York to London were made in 1927 using radio waves. In 1955 telephone cables were laid across the ocean.
Mobile phone technology made corded phones obsolete.
But easy live communication over great distances remains the fundamental appeal shared by Bell and Watson in 1876, even if the novelty has worn off.
A general view of the audience during Avril Lavigne's concert with smartphones at Espaco Unimed on September 7, 2022 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Mauricio Santana/Getty Images)
Industry sources estimate that there are around 6.5 billion smartphones in operation today (more than 80% of the world's population) that are used for much more than just phone calls.
However, hearing another voice on the phone is an experience that is now deeply ingrained in human culture.
Verizon estimated in 2020 that Americans alone made 800 million phone calls each day, or 292 billion per year.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Some people believe that the impact the telephone has had on our lives is negative,” says the Independent Telecommunications Pioneers Association.
“Whatever your beliefs, there is no doubt that the invention and development of the telephone has had an enormous impact on the way we live our lives and carry out our daily activities.”
For more lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle.
