#agbell

A.G. Bell demonstrates speaking into the telephone using a model prototype in 1876.

Today in history, A.G. Bell makes the very first telephone call in his Boston laboratory, summoning his assistant - Thomas Watson - from the next room.

Born into a family of speech instructors, Bell had a lifelong interest in the nature of sounds; both his mother and wife had hearing impairments. While working in 1875 on a device to send multiple telegraph signals over the same wire by using harmonics, he heard a *twang* 

This led his to investigation of whether his electrical apparatus could be used to transmit the sound of human voice. Bell’s journal contains the following entry on March 10, 1876: 

I then shouted into M [the mouthpiece] the following sentence: "Mr. Watson, come here — I want to see you." To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said.

I asked him to repeat the words. He answered, "You said 'Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you.'" We then changed places and I listened at S [the speaker] while Mr. Watson read a few passages from a book into the mouthpiece M. It was certainly the case that articulate sounds proceeded from S. The effect was loud but indistinct and muffled. 

Subsequently, to promote his new invention, Bell showed it that June at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Upon hearing Bell recite Hamlet’s “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy over the phone, Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil cried, “My God, it talks!" 

Why yes it does!