This Day in History: Alexander Graham Bell Patents the Telephone March 7, 1876 Born in Scotland, Bell relocated to Boston after he worked with the deaf in London.
Through his work at Boston's Pemberton Avenue School for the Deaf, Bell began to develop the ideas that would lead to the invention.
Seeking to improve upon the then-cutting edge telegraph technology, Bell sought to create a "harmonic telegraph." Essentially, he wanted to combine the long distance communication abilities of the telegraph with the sound producing abilities of the record player.
Working with Thomas A.
Watson, the inventors created a device that used an electric current to transmit sound.
Days after the patent approval, the first message carried by telephone was Bell's famous request, "Mr. Watson, come here, I need you."