The Telephone

April 25th is National Telephone Day. The first U.S. patent for the telephone was granted to Scottish immigrant, Alexander Graham Bell, in 1874. It's debatable who invented it first, and many others also worked to perfect it. But this device was the first one in history that could carry sound over long distances. Telephones soon became popular and then nearly indispensable. 

Of course, the first telephones were directly connected to each other by lines from one place to another, but soon they were operated from a switchboard. The telephone itself evolved from a device with a hand crank to a rotary dial, which lasted until the 1970's in many locations. These were followed by push-button dials and touch-tone.

Telephone technology is forever changing, however. The first mobile phones for personal use were introduced by Motorola in 1973, but they were large and cumbersome next to today's cell phones. The smartphone improved the cell phone and added new features. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow's phone will be like.

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