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- Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line -- providing fast, coast-to-coast communications during the U.S. Civil War.
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- Emile Berliner invents the flat record player ("gramophone") using acoustic horn and licenses technology to record companies who make "70-rpm" disks
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1877 - Emile Berliner invents the first microphone and sells the rights to Bell Telephone
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- Edison invents the cylinder "phonograph" used to record and playback sound. Originally thought to be useful as a business machine for dictation (like the dictaphone which would come later.) Other uses: recordings of plays pre-dating
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Danish inventor Valdemar Poulson invents magnetic wire sound recording
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Louis Glass invents the modern jukebox (coin-operated phonograph) and installs it at the "Palais Royal" saloon in San Francisco where it is an immediate hit.
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Popular music becomes a serious business; Music Publishers begin renting office space on 28th street in New York City, near vaudeville theatres in an area that would become known worldwide as "Tin Pan Alley."
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An orchestra is used with (silent) motion pictures for the first time in April in London
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Shellac gramophone disks developed by Emile Berliner - speeds will vary on discs issued by companies in different countries (80 rpm was used on some British recordings)
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- British scientist Joseph John Thompson discovers the electron particle within cathode rays
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- Eldredge Johnson perfects first system of mass duplication of pre-recorded flat disks.
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- "The Electric Theater" in Los Angeles is opened by Thomas L. Tally: the first Nickelodeon, a multimedia movie palace, that spawned imitators nationwide;
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The first double-sided phonograph records are introduced by Columbia. Soon its competitors follow suit; Prior to this time, all records had sound only on one side; the back side was a blank (un-grooved) side.
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- Disk recordings overtake cylinders in the popular market. Columbia drops cylinders
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- Edison Co. finally introduces a disk player, now that the cylinder market is gone
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Western Union introduces the first consumer charge card.
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ASCAP formed to collect public performance royalties for Composers, Authors and Publishers; Composer Victor Herbert is its first president.
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The first automatic "record changer" turntable is patented for a stack of 78's
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Western Union introduces teletypewriters, joining branches and individual companies
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- Electrical records replace acoustic discs, via a process developed by Western Electric.
