Alexander Graham Bell

Telephones

With the words, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you," the world was changed. Alexander Graham Bell made the first coherent telephone call on this date in 1876, three days after he got a patent for his invention. The call, made to his assistant, Thomas Watson, was the first time a distinct sentence was transmitted over wire. Two months later, Bell demonstrated the telephone to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, and to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.

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From our Archives: Today's Highlights, March 10, 2006