Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and teacher of the deaf who is best known for patenting the first practical telephone in 1876 and co-founding the Bell Telephone Company in 1877. He also made significant contributions to the fields of optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847, to a family of speech and elocution experts. His mother was almost deaf, and his father taught deaf people how to speak. He moved to Canada with his family in 1870, after the deaths of his two brothers from tuberculosis. He then moved to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1871, where he taught at several schools for the deaf. He also conducted experiments on sound and electricity, inspired by his work with the deaf and his own interest in acoustics. He met his future wife, Mabel Hubbard, who was one of his deaf students, and married her in 1877. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1882. Bell's most famous invention was the telephone, which he developed with the help of his assistant Thomas Watson. He successfully transmitted the first intelligible voice message over a wire on March 10, 1876, saying to Watson, Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you. He applied for a patent for his device on February 14, 1876, just hours before another inventor, Elisha Gray, filed a similar claim. Bell's patent was granted on March 7, 1876, and he defended it in several legal battles against rival claimants. He established the Bell Telephone Company in 1877, which later became the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT,T), one of the largest corporations in the world. He also invented the photophone, which transmitted sound over a beam of light, and the graphophone, which improved the recording and reproduction of sound. Bell was also interested in other scientific and technological fields, such as aviation, hydrodynamics, genetics, and eugenics. He built and flew several experimental aircraft, including the Silver Dart, the first powered flight in Canada. He also designed and tested various types of boats, including the HD-4, a hydrofoil that set a world speed record on water. He founded the Aerial Experiment Association, the National Geographic Society, and the Volta Bureau, which later became the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He supported the eugenics movement, which aimed to improve the human race through selective breeding, and advocated for the compulsory sterilization of the mentally ill and the criminal. He died of complications from diabetes at his estate in Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, on August 2, 1922, at the age of 75. He was buried there with his wife, who had died five months earlier. He was widely regarded as one of the greatest inventors and scientists of his time, and received many honors and awards, such as the Albert Medal, the John Fritz Medal, the Elliott Cresson Medal, and the Order of Merit.