History of the Telephone

First Telephone call

Mar 10, 1876

The first phone call was made by Alexander Graham Bell who said, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." Bell received a patent for his invention, but was challenged by other inventors who claimed to invent the telephone first.

Candlestick Telephone

Jan 1, 1892

This was the first desk telephone created by Alexander Bell to replace the heavy wall mounted crank telephones. This mode remained popular though the 1930s when the receiver and mouth piece began to be combined into the same piece.

Rotary Dial

Jan 11, 1898

While the patent was granted in 1898, the rotary dial was not used in service until 1919. It became more popular with the comination of the sender and reciever as one unit.

Push button Telephone

Nov 18, 1963

This type of phone replaced the rotary dial phone. It was introduced at the 1963 World's Fair in Settle, WA. Touch-tone dialing was also introduced along with the push-button dialing.

Portable phones

Jan 1, 1977

The patent for the first cordless phone was granted in 1977 with these new types of phones entering the consumer market in 1980s.

Motorola DynaTAC

Sep 21, 1983

Becomes the first cell phone to gain approve to be sold commercial. It was made available to the public in 1984.

Motorola StarTAC

Jun 3, 1996

First flip phone introduced to the market. Considered the first cell phone to gain major consumer adoption.

First smart phones introduced

Jan 1, 2003

The BlackBerry is introduced which have many features which are now associated with smart phones. This "first" smart phone was styled for the work place.

Smart phone revolution

Jun 29, 2007

A year after the first iPhone was introduced, Android phones were introduced. Currently these two styles of smart phones dominate the consumer market.