Alexander Graham Bell was born Scottish and was an inventor, scientist, and engineer credited to the invention of the world’s first telephone. He was also the founder of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in the year 1885. He was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. ‘Graham’ is not Bell’s real middle name and in fact, it was given to him when he turned 11.
On his birth anniversary today, read some interesting facts about him:
1. Bell’s grandfather, his father, and his brother worked for elocution and speech, training people how to speak in public and use correct grammar. His mother and his wife were deaf, which influenced him to make inventions.
2. Bell was interested in hearing and speech and that further led him to experiment with hearing devices and eventually got him the award for the first US patent for a telephone on March 7, 1876.
3. Despite being the inventor of the telephone, Bell refused to have one in his study and called his invention an intrusion in his real work as a scientist.
4. Even though Bell was not one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society, he had a strong influence on the magazine where he served as the second president from January 7, 1898, to 1903.
5. Although he was an engineer by profession, he had a deep interest in the emerging science of heredity.
6. Bell was also a voice teacher who worked with his father in developing visible speech. The written symbols were designed to help the deaf while speaking.
7. He dedicated his life to studying and making inventions for those with hearing and speech disabilities. His primary focus was to help people with hearing disabilities and the telephone came into existence when he was experimenting with acoustic telegraphy.
8. On Bell’s death day, to honour the man, all telephone services in the USA and Canada were suspended during his final rites in 1922.
