The phone then and now

  • The first in the works

    Italian innovator Antonio Meucci is credited with inventing the first basic phone in 1849
  • 2nd on the team

    Frenchman Charles Bourseul devised a phone in 1854
  • Period: to

    The ringing of the "Bell"

    Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. Bell began his research in 1874 and had financial backers who gave him the best business plan for bringing it to market.
  • Evolving forever after

    n 1877-78, the first telephone line was constructed, the first switchboard was created and the first telephone exchange was in operation.
  • Phone here phone there phone everywhere

    In 1880, Bell merged this company with others to form the American Bell Telephone Company
  • Period: to

    Herd of phones

    By 1900 there were nearly 600,000 phones in Bell's telephone system; that number shot up to 2.2 million phones by 1905, and 5.8 million by 1910.
  • transcontinental anything 2.0 (nod to transcontinental railroad)

    In 1915 the transcontinental telephone line began operating.
  • Rotation nation

    In 1927, the very first rotary dial telephone was created and shipped to it's first owner.
  • Pushing buttons is fun

    It took a while but the first dial pad telephone was created and shipped in 1963 and on the rotary phone's 36th birthday too
  • Wirelessly Accessible

    The first cordless phones were created and shipped in 1965
  • Take me away (But be careful, I'm fragile)

    Phones became mobile and people were able to use them virtually anywhere they wanted
  • May take time

    In addition to the last piece, mobile phones were not available to the public till this day
  • I'm bigger and stronger

    The first advanced mobile phone was released on new years of 1983
  • flippy phone

    A new mechanical marvel was created on this day: the flip phone.