On This Day

On This Day in Telephone History March 30TH 1967 SEACOM opens to the public. An alternate telephone communications route between the United States, Australia and other Pacific points was provided with the opening of Southeast Asia Commonwealth cable (SEACOM) between Guam and Cairns, Australia, by the way of New Guinea. Long Lines had rights to … Read more

  On This Day in Telephone History March 29TH 1872 the firm of Gray and Barton became Western Electric Manufacturing Company, of Chicago, through consolidation with another of the Western Union Telegraph Company’s shops. The Company began in 1869 as the firm of Gray and Barton. Its founders were Elisha Gray, a college professor with … Read more

On This Day in Telephone History March 28TH 1928 Transatlantic Telephone Service opened from the United States to Paris, France. The transatlantic connection between the United States and Paris recalls the fact that thirteen years earlier, in 1915, the first words spoken by human voice to be heard across the Atlantic were received at Eiffel … Read more

On This Day in Telephone History March 27TH 1884 The First Successful Long Distance Conversation between Boston and New York. It took place over a telephone circuit of two hard-drawn copper #12 wires. This line was regarded as an experiment, sponsored by the American Bell Company and built by companies along the route – a … Read more

On This Day in Telephone History March 27TH 1929 First Telephone Installed in the Oval Office on president Herbert Hoover’s desk. Prior to this, the President utilized a telephone from a booth outside the Oval Office. President Rutherford B. Hayes had the first telephone installed at the White House in 1878.

On This Day in Telephone History March 26TH 1958 “White Alice,” the radio transmission web in Alaska, turned over to Air Force by Western Electric. “White Alice” used an over-the-horizon method of transmission to link outposts of the Alaskan Air Command and the DEW Line. Western Electric technicians directed the engineering, procurement, installation of the … Read more

On This Day in Telephone History March 25TH 1913 30 men and women escape the Great Dayton Flood by Walking Along Telephone Wires. The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 resulted from flooding by the Great Miami River reaching Dayton, Ohio, and the surrounding area, causing the greatest natural disaster in Ohio history.

On This Day in Telephone History March 24TH 1879, Marjorie Gray became Connecticut’s First Female Telephone Operator employed by the Telephone Dispatch Company of Bridgeport. The first telephone exchange operators were adolescent boys, but their sophomoric tendencies proved abusive to subscribers. Adult women were found to be professional and hospitable. Eventually, women completely dominated the … Read more

On This Day in Telephone History March 23RD 1965 After their Return to Earth from the Gemini 3 Space Mission, Astronauts John W. Young and Virgil I. Grissom made a phone call.