Ward's Book of Days.
Pages of interesting anniversaries.
What happened on this day in history.
MARCH 3rd
On this day in history in 1847, was born Alexander Graham Bell.
Bell was an audiologist and inventor best known for his invention of the telephone.
Bell was born in Edinburgh, to a family of speech therapists. For three generations, The Bells had been the foremost authorities on elocution and speech correction. The young Bell was trained to enter the family profession. He had a reliable education at Edinburgh’s Royal High School and was instructed privately from the benchmark text for speech therapists, A M Bell’s Standard Elocution.
Upon leaving college, Bell took up a position as a remedial teacher at school in Elgin where he taught music and elocution. From there, he went to Elgin’s Weston House Academy where, apart from his regular duties, he was given the opportunity to study science. In order to improve his audiological techniques, Bell’s efforts in science were concerned with the transmission of sound.
When Bell’s two brothers were struck down with tuberculosis, the family decided to emigrate to a healthier climate. They moved to Canada, where they continued their family business and Bell continued his experiments in sound. He took up a position in Boston, where he employed a young mechanic, Thomas Watson, to assist him in making the equipment to convey sound waves. After years of patient work, they had a working model. Bell had the privilege of making the first telephone message. It was to Watson in the next room ”Mr Watson, come in here. I want you”.
Bell invented several other gadgets including the first working metal detector. This device was used on the body of assassinated American President, James Garfield, in an attempt to locate the bullet in his body. The attempt would have succeeded had not the late president been lying on a metal bed frame, which confused the instrument.
©2006 Ward’s Book of Days