OnThisDay

On This Day in Telephone History April 6TH 1965 – The First Commercial Communications Satellite, Early Bird, was launched into orbit from Cape Kennedy. The 85-pound satellite was of the synchronous type, matching the earth’s rotation to hover over the same spot all the time.

On This Day in Telephone History April 5TH 1877 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his new device called a Telephone at Music Hall, Providence, RI, using circuit from Boston for demonstration.

On This Day in Telephone History April 4TH 1877 The First Home Telephone Line connected the workshop of Charles Williams, Jr., located at 109 Court Street in Boston, to his house in Somerville, Massachusetts. The telephones became No. 1 and 2 in the Bell Telephone Company.

On This Day in Telephone History April 3RD 1877 the First Telephone Conversation between Boston and New York took place. Thomas Watson was in Boston and Alexander Graham Bell was in NYC. Over a borrowed telegraph line, the two telephone pioneers reported a successful but extremely difficult test.

On This Day in Telephone History April 3RD 1973 The First Handheld Mobile Phone Call was placed by Marty Cooper on a DynaTac 8000x The call was to Bell Labs’ Head of Research, Joel Engel. 10 years later, the DynaTac 8000x would become the first such phone to be commercially released.

On This Day in Telephone History April 2ND 1879 First Telephone Exchange in Rhode Island opened in Providence. Also On This Day And Year, The District Telephone Company of New Haven, Predecessor of Southern New England Telephone (SNET), Purchased two private wire lines between Springfield and Holyoke, ma., Where it then operated exchanges. Conversion of … Read more

On This Day in Telephone History April 1ST all this Telephone Stuff happened: 1871 Alexander Graham Bell, substituting for his father, commenced a series of lectures to teach the deaf to use Visible Speech in forming words at “Sarah Fuller’s school“ otherwise the Boston School for the Deaf, 11 Pemberton Square. At this time, he … Read more

On This Day in Telephone History March 31ST, 1971 Western Union Corporation acquired TWX exchange service operated by ATT and several independent telephone companies. The TWX sale did not include ATT’s private line teletypewriter service or the teletypewriter machines used by ATT’s DataPhone customers.

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