The invention of the telephone revolutionized modern communications and became a technology indispensable to businesses, households, and governments. Now, the telephone is one of the most common appliances found in the developed world.
It was on this day, August 31st, in 1870 that the telephone was invented independently by Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell. Bell, however, was able to patent his invention before Gray.
The credit for who invented the electric telephone is still hotly debated. Several inventors did experimental work on voice transmission over a wire, and all of these inventors built on one another’s ideas. What is undisputable though is that Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be awarded a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Every other patent for electric telephone devices and features was built on Bell’s “master patent.”