On March 7, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received US Patent Number 174465 for his invention of the telephone. The patent is entitled: Improvement in Telegraphy. When this saga began, not even Bell himself had no inkling of the vast scale that would be reached by his invention or that so many patents would be granted in the future based on his invention and patents. Even the name of the invention given in the request for patent on the telephone was “an improvement in telegraphy”, which explained very simply and basically, the scientific principle supporting the invention.
Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847. At the age of 29, he received patent on his invention of the telephone. Bell began inventing and patenting while still very young. Even as a boy, his imagination was very developed and among other things, he tried to develop products and devices that would help the hard of hearing and the deaf. He had a personal interest in that field because his mother began going deaf when he was still a child and his family was involved in the investigation of sound.
Bell conducted a range of experiments in the creation and transmission of sound. Bell and his investors founded the famous Bell Telephone Company. In 1883, the Company connected Boston and New York through a telephone system based on Bell’s inventions and patents. With our current historical perspective and the time that has passed since then, the first telephone systems developed by the genius Bell seem very basic and simple – they operated without any dial or keypad. Connections were made between telephone end units by a switchboard operator, who connected the caller to the required number. Bell’s patents provided the impetus for the development of a great many more inventions and patents, referring to automatic switchboards and as early as 1910, 7% of Americans had a telephone at home. In 1915, the first west coast to east coast call was made in the USA.
The State of Israel was connected to France by its first underwater ocean cable in the 1960s.
Bell was a serial, unceasing inventor and had 18 patents registered in his name during his lifetime. Those patents refer to inventions, which are the basic building blocks for many more patented inventions based on Bell’s work. Bell worked in a wide range of different fields – for example: Transmission of sounds with the help of light, medical devices and research. Bell invented the metal detector, hovercraft, airplanes and during his lifetime, received many prizes and accolades.