2026-01-03 Sat

Alexander Graham Bell, a Scottish-born scientist and Engineer, is widely recognized for patenting the first practical telephone. He achieved this significant milestone on 07 March 1876. In recognition of his invaluable contributions to Science and Technology, Alexander Graham Bell Day is commemorated globally on March7th every year.

Born on 03 March 1847, Bell hailed from a family deeply engaged in the field of speech. His father, Alexander Melville Bell, was a speech therapist who developed "Visible Speech," a phonetic system designed to assist individuals with hearing impairments in their Communication. Notably, his mother, Eliza Grace Symonds Bell, who was deaf, played a pivotal role in fostering young Bell’s lifelong fascination with sound.

In 1870, Bell emigrated with his family to Canada, and the following year, he relocated to the United States to pursue a Career in teaching. There, he advanced the system of visible speech, originally developed by his father, to educate deaf-mute children. In 1872, Bell established a school in Boston aimed at training teachers for the deaf, which later became affiliated with Boston University, where he was appointed as a professor of vocal physiology in 1873.

His enduring interest in transmitting speech culminated in 1875 when he developed a basic receiver capable of converting electricity into sound. With the addition of a microphone, invented by Thomas Edison, the necessity for users to raise their voices was eliminated. He was awarded a patent for the telephone in 1876, and the invention rapidly evolved. Within a year, the first telephone exchange was established in Connecticut, leading to the founding of the Bell Telephone Company.

Within a decade following this groundbreaking invention, over 105,000 individuals in the United States owned a telephone. However, Bell himself did not possess a telephone, as he preferred to remain focused on his scientific endeavors, often referring to himself simply as a "teacher of the deaf."

Bell's later life was marked by numerous additional innovations, including pioneering work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics. He was also a founding member of the National Geographic Society in 1888, later serving as its president, and played an instrumental role in the establishment of its journal, National Geographic. Furthermore, he was involved in the creation of the journal Science, which evolved into the official publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Interestingly, within six years of the telephone's invention, telephones made their debut in #India. In 1881, the Oriental Telephone and Electric Company Ltd., a firm based in London, obtained a license to establish telephone exchanges in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. These exchanges began operating officially in 1882.

For many years following Bell’s passing on 02 August 1922 in Canada, the whereabouts of his first telephone remained a mystery. Bell had presented this first device to his childhood friend James Murray, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, as a token of gratitude for imparting knowledge about acoustics and electricity during their time in Edinburgh. Murray had left this device in his Oxford house attic. But when an attic search was conducted at Murray's Oxford residence during the 1980s, the device was not located. It is presumed that soldiers who had occupied the house during World War II may have used all available materials, including items from the attic, for warmth on particularly cold days, potentially resulting in the loss of this historic artifact to fire.

On 10 March 1976, India Post issued a commemorative stamp featuring a portrait of Alexander Graham Bell, with a face value of 25 paise, to honor the centenary of the telephone's invention.