I was just amazed that I could sit there and post to this blog on a tiny hand held device because the man pictured here, Alexander Graham Bell, invented the telephone. He's pictured here in July 1877.
Except of course my post didn't work, in one of those familiar mobile glitches. And that makes two failures, because according to this article from 2002 in the Guardian, neither did Alexander Bell invent the telephone, but he actually nicked the idea from Antonio Meucci
This story is both sad and heroic, Italian Antonio Meucci was a political activist who actually invented the telephone when his wife Ester became paralysed so that she could talk to him from her bed while he was in his workshop.
In a familiarly modern story, he couldn't afford the patent, and 16 years after he'd demonstrated his invention, Alexander Bell took out the patent and accepted all the praise for the invention.
Had Antonio had the $10 (@$200 today) necessary to maintain the caveat on his invention after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell and we'd have all been giving each other a Meucci.
In 2002 US Congress were finally persuaded to recognise this humble man as the "father of modern communications" 113 years after his death.
Although also Scottish, I know Cathy Casey will not object to this evening up of the historical record. and I'd like to thank her for tipping me off that entry to MOTAT is free for the whole of June. Now the question remains, why haven't they updated their telephone exhibit?
Guess we'd better ask them.
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