The patent for the telephone turns 150 today, the first call was made three days later on March 10, 1876.

Before the phone: One of the earliest ways to communicate outside of mail was the telegraph, invented by Samuel Morse in 1837. The telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication by transmitting messages in Morse code over wires. It required skilled operators to encode and decode.

1876 – The very first telephone was developed. Two inventors, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray, both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electronically.Bell reached the patent office mere hours before Gray and won the famous battle over the invention when his patent was passed on March 7, 1876.

Three days later, Bell transmitted the first discernible speech over the telephone to his assistant: “Mr. Watson, come here; I want to see you.”

The telephone used a diaphragm, a coil and a receiver to convert sound waves into electrical signals and back into sound waves, enabling real-time voice conversations.

On May 10, 1876, Bell presented his paper “On Telegraphing Musical Sounds,” later published in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences proceedings as “Researches in Telephony.”

1879 – The Top Box was one of the first business-focused telephones. This wall-mounted device, crafted from mahogany wood and Viaduct Manufacturing Co. hardware, became a common sight in both businesses and homes.

1880 – The Gower-Bell Telephone was another early commercial success. This telephone featured a diaphragm and a receiver, offering improved sound quality and reliability over earlier models. It was the main phone used in countries like Spain, Japan and England.

1892 – Telephone technology rapidly evolved in the early 1900s with the invention of the dial phone in 1892.

Almon B. Strowger invented a telephone that could perform the first automatic telephone exchange and did not require an operator.