In 1875, Alexander Graham Bell developed his first version of what became the modern telephone. He received a patent for it on March 7, 1876, just after his 29th birthday. Five days later, on March 12th, he tested his device speaking into the phone to his associate Thomas Watson, when he said, Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” As a teenager Bell, noticed that a chord struck on a piano in one room would be echoed by a piano in another room. He soon realized that chords could be transmitted through the air, vibrating at the other end at the exactly the same pitch. With this discovery, Bell set out to develop a multiple telegraph, using Morse code to convey several messages simultaneously, each at a different pitch. He knew the greatest challenge would be finding a way to convey a pitch across wire. He eventually accomplished this by reproducing sound waves in a continuous, undulating current. That’s when he realized that this could also apply to human speech, which is composed of many complex vibrations.Bell first demonstrated his most famous invention, the telephone, on June 25, 1876 at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. There, he showed that the sound of a human voice could be reproduced, which confirmed his theory that speech patterns can be made to change the intensity of an electrical current.A year after Bell’s initial public demonstration, he placed the world’s first telephone call over telegraph wires between two towns in Ontario, Canada—a span of eight miles. Just two months later, the long distance reach of telephone technology was expanded to 143 miles. Today, of course, telephone calls may be placed to virtually to any location around the globe. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 top bring telephone to the masses. The company provided the foundation for today’s telecommunications industry....
