The Word “Telephone” Was Used Almost 50 Years Before The Telephone Existed – It Was For A Musical Signalling Device.

Take a moment on National Telephone Day this April 25, to recall comedian Gary Gulman’s classic riff:

“To me, the phone is a seldom-used app on my phone.”

We have come a long way. If you ask most people who invented the phone, they would likely respond not with “Alexander Graham Bell,” but with “Steve Jobs.”

Well, Apple’s 2007 iPhone release did change mobile technology forever. A camera, iPod, computer, and phone — all in one handheld device? Sounds quaint now, but tell that to the folks who lined up for days trying the buy one.

Gary’s right. The “phone” part of your phone seems like an afterthought. Disagree?

You can always text us.

• 1828 – The Word “Telephone” Was Used Before The Telephone Existed. The word “telephone” was first used in 1828 by Francois Sudre to describe his musical signaling device. Later on, the term was also applied to the phone as we know it.
• 1876 – By May, Bell and his team stood prepared for a public demonstration. And there would be no better place than the grand stage of the World’s Fair in Philadelphia. On May 10, 1876, in a crowded Machinery Hall, a man’s voice transmitted from a small horn and carried out through a speaker to the audience.
  • The correct answer to a trivia question like “Who invented the telephone?” is the name on the patent. In this case, the whole world knows the answer is Alexander Graham Bell. Had his attorney been delayed by foul weather or poor planning, the answer might have been a different name.
  • Three days after the patent was approved, Bell spoke his first words by telephone to his assistant. “Mr.Watson, come here! I want to see you!”
  • “Ahoy” was the original telephone greeting.  Alexander Graham Bell suggested ‘ahoy’ (as used in ships), but it was later superseded by Thomas Edison, who suggested ‘hello’ instead.
• 1876 – A cash-strapped Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first successful telephone, offered to sell his telephone patent to Western Union for $100,000. They declined.
• 1877 – One year later, the White House installed its first phone. The telephone revolution began.
• 1877 – Bell Telephone Company was founded on July 9, 1877, and they installed the first public telephone lines from Boston to Somerville, Massachusetts, the same year.
• 1878 – The first phonebook was just one page long. The first telephone directory, consisting of a single piece of cardboard, was issued on 21 February 1878;
  • it listed 50 individuals, businesses, and other offices in New Haven, Connecticut that had telephones. The directory was not alphabetized and no numbers were associated with the people included in it.
• 1878 – The District Telephone Company of New Haven was established on January 28, 1878, becoming the first commercial telephone exchange in the world.
• 1879 – Initially, subscribers to the telephone service were listed by name, with no numbers assigned. People had to provide names to telephone operators to connect to them. The first telephone numbers were used in 1879 in Massachusetts.
• 1880 – On June 3, 1880, Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first wireless telephone message on his “photophone.” The device allowed sound to be transmitted over a beam of light, without wires.  This technology was a rudimentary version of what we know as fiber optics today.
• 1900 – By the end of the decade, nearly 50,000 phones were in use in the United States.
• 1904 – The French Phone was developed by the Bell company. This had the transmitter and receiver in a simple handset in 1904.
• 1908 – The first U.S. patent for a mobile phone was issued in 1908 in Kentucky to Nathan B. Stubblefield. The patent was for a radiotelephone.
• 1910 – New York Telephone had 6,000 women telephone operators by 1910.
• 1915 – Bell, based in New York, calls Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
• 1967 – In May of 1967, the 100 millionth telephone line was installed in the United States.
• 1983 – The first mobile phone, introduced in 1983, was called the DynaTAC 8000x. Made by Motorola, it looked like other telephones from its time, except that it didn’t have wires! It took 10 hours to charge fully, and you could use it for only 30 minutes.
• 1992 – The first smartphone was created in 1992 and made available in 1994. It was created by IBM, and the model was known as the Simon Personal Communicator.
• 2024 – the number of smartphone users in the world today is 4.88 Billion, which translates to 60.42% of the world’s population owning a smartphone.
  • In terms of the number of phones (where users can have one or more), the number of active smartphone subscriptions is 7.21 billion.
  • When including feature phones, this number reaches 8.31 Billion.
• 2025 – The vast majority of Americans – 98% – now own a cellphone. About nine-in-ten (91%) own a smartphone, up from just 35% in the Center’s first survey of smartphone ownership conducted in 2011.
• On May 11th, governors and dignitaries for U.S. territories joined President Lyndon Johnson on the largest conference call ever held up to that date.
• According to a recent survey, 47 percent of all water-damaged mobile phones in the UK have been dropped down the toilet.
• In the early days, telephone wires were ranked according to how tasty they were to mice and rats.
• Mark Twain was one of the first to have a phone in his home.
• Frigensophobia is the fear that using your mobile is damaging your brain.
• Addiction to mobile phones is called nomophobia.
• Payphones are still used by five percent of the population, at least once per year.
• Mobile phones have 18 times more bacteria than toilet handles.
• The phrase “to put someone on hold” was named after Alexander and his assistant, Mr. Watson, when Bell handed Watson the phone and said, “Here, hold this.”
• 41% of people under 25 hate it when you don’t pick up the phone after you have just texted them.
• The automatic dialing system was invented by Almon Brown Strowger, an undertaker who, like other subscribers, used the services of telephone operators who connected calls to and from his place of business. One of the telephone operators was a competitor’s wife. Strowger believed that she sent calls that were supposed to be for his business to her husband instead.

Sources

National Day Calendar

Knowlarity

Live About

Telephone Interpreting Service

Ring Central

Sutori

UltaTel

The Fact File

National Today

PEW Research

Bank My Cell