A History of the Telephone

1667: Robert Hooke invents the tin-can-on-a-string telephone, or “lover’s telephone” because people were very fond of tin cans back in the seventeenth century. Sound was transmitted acoustically along a taut string across a distance of a few dozen feet. Considering the deplorable hygiene of the time, putting more distance between yourself and the person you were talking to was essentially as ground-breaking as the invention of the wheel.
1816: The first working telegraph was created by Francis Ronalds, inventor and well-known epileptic sword-swallower. This telegraph used static electricity and could only be used until the receiving party ran out of balloons.

1832: The first electromagnetic telegraph is created by Pavel Schilling because EVERYTHING is better with magnets.

1837: Samuel Morse invents the Morse Code which would eventually replace Bushido in the United States.

1839: The first commercial telegraph ran for thirteen miles along England’s Great Western Railway. This was a victory for all those who wanted news of what was happening thirteen miles away and couldn’t wait half an hour for the next train to convey it.

1860: Johann Philipp Reis develops prototype for the first telephone in Friedrichsdorf, Germany. When he attempts to sell his idea to investors, he is rejected. He attributes the rejection to a lack of foresight and the fact that he had an eye infection that was stomach-turning.

1876: Alexander Bell and Elisha Gray patent the telephone on exactly the same day. Determining who had invented it first was facilitated by a public discussion where Gray called Bell a liar; Bell called Gray a “liar times two”; Gray went all out and called Bell a “liar times infinity”; and, Bell crushed it by calling Gray a “liar times infinity factorial”… The first time the factorial operation had been used in a legal argument…

1877: The first telephone exchange is created in Boston allowing calls to become misdirected for the first time.

1877: The first long distance telephone line was strung. It covered sixty miles, which can be a long distance if you are walking and carrying a gas can…

1878: First phone book is distributed in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one page long and had no numbers… just names or places of business. Someone bought a full-page ad the next year and the size of the phone book doubled overnight…

1889: The payphone is patented, causing immediate interest amongst investors and drug pushers.

1891: The first rotary dial is invented, giving Sarah in Mayberry some well needed rest…

1915: The first coast-to-coast telephone call is made; and, it becomes glaringly obvious that west coast people answer their phones like this… whereas, east coast people answer their phones like THIS…

1927: The first transatlantic call is made by W. S. Gifford of AT&T. The call consisted of suggestive questions and heavy breathing that pretty much creeped everyone out.

1963: The first touch tone phones are introduced commercially… The country of Spain is quick to complain because they’d prefer to press 1 for Spanish…

1968: Caller ID was invented by “Ted” Paraskevakos in Greece, forcing obnoxious ten year old Greek kids to find some other way to annoy adults…

1973: The first cell phone call is made and the signal is immediately dropped.

1989: The first flip phone models went on sale. This made the portable phone more compact if you ignored the four feet of antenna required to use it…

1992: The first text message was sent by Neil Papworth, starting a trend for people too cowardly to break up with their boy or girlfriends over the phone or in person.

1992: First smartphone invented. Actually, some phones were smart before that, but they were knew enough to not draw attention to it.

2000: The first camera phone released by Sharp. This allowed people to delay having fun to take a selfie of themselves about to have fun. It also helped people photograph meals they were proud of making or ordering from all angles, usually until the food was too cold to be palatable…

 

2005: The first waterproof phone, Casio Canu 502S, goes on sale. It does NOT make much of a splash…

2007: The iPhone hits store shelves for the first time heralding the last time a lot of customers will ever made eye-contact with another human being…

2014: Slim phones go on sale and are soon bouncing around in the dryers of absent-minded consumers everywhere.

2025: Massive solar flares knock out all satellites and make smartphones useless to anyone not needing a paperweight. After so many years of not interacting with other humans, personal hygiene has become deplorable. To speak to one another without grossing each other out, a device is used which is essentially two tin cans on a string…