Alexander+Graham+Bell

Birth : March 3, 1847 Death: August 2, 1922
 * Alexander Graham Bell (**1847-1922**)**

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and is most known for inventing the telephone. But, he was an inventor at a very early age. At eleven, he invented a machine that cleaned wheat. He attended the University of London to study anatomy and physiology, but his parents' urge to keep him healthy, prompted them to move to Canada. A few years later, he moved to the United States, more specifically, Boston. He became a teacher for the hearing-impaired, and had the idea for electronic speech after visiting his mother in Canada, who was also deaf.

In 1876, Bell was 29 years old, and he invented the first telephone with the help of his assistant Thomas A. Watson. The interest sparked when Bell wanted to perfect a way to carry multiple messages through a single wire. He realized that he could send voice over wire when his assitant was trying to revive a transmitter. He transmitted a simple current first, then five days later he transmitted voice. The first words that Bell spoke into the telephone, which are now famous, were, "Watson, come here. I need you." He set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut in 1878. Six years later, long distant connections between Massachusetts and New York City became possible.

In 1877, Bell created the Bell Telephone Company, and he married Mabel Hubbard. They spent a year long honeymoon in Europe. HIs invention of the telephone wasn't his last. His home contained an earlier version of the air conditioner. He also help in aviation technology. His last patent was at the age of 75, for a hydrofoil, wing-like structures below the hull of the boat to reduce drag. After the telephone, Bell created the photophone. It was a machine that transmitted sound through a beam of light. Bell even stated that the photophone was "the greatest invention i've ever made;even greater than the telephone." He dedicated his life to scientific study and advancement. In 1881, he won the France's Volta Prize and built the Volta Laboratory in Washington D.C.

In 1898, Bell took over a small scientific society, the National Geographic Society. He and his son-in-law, Gilbert Grosvenor, transformed the journal into one of the most famous magazines today, //National Geographic.// He also helped create //Science// magazine. When Alexander Graham Bell was buried, telephone service all over the U.S was cut off for one minute out of respect.

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