1847: Werner von Siemens founds Siemens & Halske
1861: Reis demonstrates the Telephon
1865: Dolbear invents early telephone receiver
1871: Meucci files caveat for voice communication device
1876: Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
1876: Elisha Gray files telephone caveat
1876: First intelligible telephone call
1876: Lars Magnus Ericsson founds Ericsson
First telephone line
1877: Thomas Edison patents the carbon button transmitter
1877: Bell Telephone founded by Gardiner Hubbard, AGB's father-in-law
1877: Tivadar Puskás invents the telephone exchange
1877: Berliner patents the telephone microphone
1877: Watson invents the telephone ringer
Japan reproduces Bell telephones
1878: First telephone directory published
1878: Blake transmitter patented
1878: Coy opens the first telephone exchange (in New Haven)
1878: Emma Nutt becomes first female telephone operator
First telephone exchange opens in London
Telephone service begins in Canada, Mexico, Australia, Sweden and Denmark
1880: Sise founds Bell Telephone Company of Canada
Telephone Exchanges open in Berlin, Vienna, and Sydney
First telephone lines in Constantinople and Egypt
Metallic circuit introduced
First telephone exchanges in India, Russia, and Shanghai
First underground telephone cables
1882: Fancy 'Pulpit' phone
First long-distance line: Boston to Providence
Western Electric becomes Bell's manufacturer
1884: Woods patents improved telephone transmitter
AT&T incorporated
1887: Heaviside discovers inductive loading for telephone lines
1889: Almon Strowger invents the automatic switch
1889: Gray patents the coin-operated pay telephone
1890: Telephone service begins between Tokyo and Yokohama
1891: Strowger forms Automatic Electric Company, and receives switch patent
First rotary dial telephones installed
1892: First Strowger automatic exchange opens (in LaPorte, Indiana)
Long-distance line connects Boston to Chicago
1894: Bell's patent expires; independent telephone movement begins
1894: Stromberg and Carlson found Stromberg-Carlson
GPO takes over UK trunk network
1896: Candlestick phones start getting fancy
1897: Milo Kellogg founds Kellogg Switchboard and Supply
1898: Beehive phone
1898: Poulsen invents magnetic recording for telephones
First automatic exchange in Europe opens in Berlin
NEC founded as Japan's first foreign joint venture
1899: Henry Elston showing off his company's telephones
1900: Pupin loading coils patented
1900: Fessenden achieves first wireless voice transmission
Loading coil extends long-distance
1905: Sears' founder and his favorite phone
1906: De Forest Audion triode invented
1907: Theodore Vail returns to AT&T as President
1908: Taft learning he's been nominated for president
1909: Girl on phone
1909: Lincoln Telephone Office in Nebraska
1909: Strowger factory
First multiplexed telephone circuits
GPO takes over local UK telephone networks
1912: Wilson after hearing he'd been nominated for president
1913: Vacuum tube repeater demonstrated
1913: Kingsbury Commitment
Transcontinental telephone line completed
First transatlantic voice transmission
1915: First transcontinental phone call
1915: Carty achieves transcontinental telephone service
1915: Arnold perfects the vacuum-tube telephone amplifier
1917: Pelo Telefone (Donga)
Bell System adopts rotary dial switching
1919: Julia O'Connor leads the first telephone operators' strike
1920: Beaux-Arts phone
1920: Otto Zobel invents m-derived filters
Dial phones spread to major cities
1920: Sosthenes Behn founds ITT; later collaborates with the Nazis
Type C carrier system deployed
France creates PTT Administration
1925: C&P Telephone repair shop
1925: Bell Labs founded, in NYC
1927: Fuld Bauhaus Phone
First transatlantic phone call
1927: Black invents the negative feedback amplifier
1927: Ives demonstrates the first television telephone
1928: Stan Laurel promo photo
1929: A Desert Span, Building Trunk Telephone Lines (AT&T)
1930: Anti-sidetone circuit developed
1930: Phone Pioneers Talk Telephone
1930: Stromberg Carlson 'Batphone'
1933: Kellogg 900
Communications Act of 1934
First telephone call routed around the world
1936: Dali creates the Lobster Phone
1936: Introduction to the Dial Telephone (AT&T)
1937: Alec Reeves invents pulse code modulation
1937: Jean Arthur in Easy Living
1937: Dreyfuss designs the Western Electric Model 302
1938: Crossbar switching introduced
1938: The Voice of the City
1938: Coaxial cable enables broadband
1939: AE 40
1940: A Modern Aladdin's Lamp, About Vacuum Tubes (Western Electric)
1940: Pennsylvania 6-5000 (Glenn Miller & His Orchestra)
1941: Churchill uses wireless phone from a tank turret
Phone production halted for WWII
1942: Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland movie promo photo
1942: Modern Caravans
1942: Hedy Lamarr patents Secret Communications System
1943: Newfoundland Long Lines, a WWII Film (U.S. Army / AT&T)
1943: War and the Telephone (AT&T)
1945: Harry Truman on the phone
1946: Television and The Telephone, Microwave Broadcasting (AT&T)
1946: Telephone Courtesy
First mobile telephone service
Cellular telephone concept proposed
Microwave relay network begun
1947: James Stewart and Ned Sparks
1947: A Million Times a Day
1947: Transistor invented at Bell Labs
1948: Barbara Stanwyck in Sorry Wrong Number
1948: Sorry, Wrong Number (Trailer)
1948: Movie Theater Newsreel (AT&T)
1948: Crystal Clear
1948: Bottle of Magic (The Vacuum Tube)
1948: Automatic Electric acquires Gray Manufacturing Co.
1948: Shannon publishes A Mathematical Theory of Communication
First customer-dialed long-distance call
1949: Irving Penn girl in bed with phone
1950: Cable to Cuba, Laying Undersea Cable (AT&T)
1950: Telephone Blues (Sonny Terry)
1951: I Love Lucy seance episode
1951: The Step-By-Step Switch
Direct long-distance dialing begins
Transistors first used in telephone equipment
1953: Audrey Hepburn
1953: How to Marry a Millionaire
1953: The Transistor (Bell System)
1954: Hitchcock movie promo with GPO rotary phone
1954: Dia M For Murder phone scene
1954: Elizabeth Taylor promo pic
1954: Bettie Page
1954: Dial M For Murder (Trailer)
1954: Now You Can Dial
1954: The Ericofon
1955: Dialing the Nation (AT&T)
1956: The Bell Solar Battery
1956: Transatlantic telephone cable (TAT-1)
Improved echo suppressors deployed
1958: Conversation Crossroads, a Surreal Look at Telephone Switching
1958: Submarine Cable Systems Development
1959: Cable to the Continent, the Second Transatlantic Telephone Cable (AT&T)
1959: Schmoo phone prototype (Bell Labs + Henry Dreyfuss)
T1 digital carrier system developed
1960: Natalie Wood on the phone
1961: The Far Sound, a History of Long Distance Communications (AT&T)
1962: Christo wraps a phone
1962: Astronaut Scott Carpenter talks to JFK
1962: Telstar: first communication satellite
1962: Beechwood 4-5789 (The Marvelettes)
1962: Don't Hang Up (The Orlons)
1963: Anne Margaret in By Bye Birdie
1963: Lonesome 7-7203 (Hawkshaw Hawkins)
TPC-1: First transpacific telephone cable
1964: INTELSAT founded for global satellite communications
1964: Peter Sellers calls the Soviet president in Strangelove
1964: LBJ on the phone and not looking happy
1965: Early Bird: First commercial geostationary satellite
1965: No. 1 ESS switch enters commercial service
1965: Electronic Switching System, Central Office Debut (Bell System)
1965: Interview with Arthur C. Clarke, AT&T-MIT Conference
1965: Genesis of the Transistor (Bell Labs)
1965: Lucky invents the adaptive equalizer
1966: 842-3089 Call My Name (Etta James)
1966: Grillo Phone
1966: 634-5789 (Wilson Pickett)
1966: Kao proves fiber optics can carry telephone signals
Nokia Corporation formed by three-way merger
1967: 911 emergency number designated
1967: The Astonishing, Unfailing Bell System
1968: Carterfone decision
GPO becomes public corporation in UK
1969: First consumer answering machine (PhoneMate)
1969: Nixon calls Armstrong/Aldrin on the moon
1969: Pollution (Western Electric)
1970: Brigitte Bardot
1970: Moon Orbit Communications, Apollo 8 (AT&T)
1970: Debut of the First Picturephone (AT&T)
1971: Bless The Telephone (Labi Siffre)
1971: Hoover invents computerized call switching
1972: All Kinds of People (AT&T)
1972: Giorgetto Giugiaro Rialto Phone
1972: Operator (Jim Croce)
1972: Joel patents cellular call handoff
1973: Carl Bernstein on the phone at the Washington Post
1973: Ring Ring (ABBA)
1973: Cooper makes the first handheld cell phone call
1973: Metcalfe invents Ethernet
1974: Bob Woodward on the phone at the Washington Post
1974: Jane Birkin
1974: Careers: Service Representative (AT&T)
1974: Careers: Line Worker (AT&T)
1974: Careers: Toll Operator (AT&T)
1974: The Engineer (AT&T)
1974: Carol Burnett: Phone Operator
1974: Rikki Don't Lose That Number (Steely Dan)
1974: Cerf and Kahn design TCP/IP
1975: President Ford speaks to Apollo-Soyuz astronauts
1975: Jim Rockford (James Garner) on the phone
1975: Gerald Ford at Camp David
1975: Operator (Manhattan Transfer)
1975: Fiber optic telephone transmission
No. 4 ESS digital toll switch deployed
Japan achieves nationwide automatic telephone service
1977: JImmy Carter talking with the British PM
1977: Single Sideband, Microwave Transmission (AT&T)
1977: Design Line Promo (AT&T)
1977: Lightwave (AT&T)
1977: Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra)
1977: Telephone Man (Meri Wilson)
Northern Telecom DMS-100 digital switch
1978: 5.7.0.5. (City Boy)
1978: Telephone Office Planning and Engineering System (Bell Labs)
1978: Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS), Cell Phones (AT&T)
1978: The Copper Trail (AT&T)
1978: Good-Bye, Central
1978: First cellular test network
1978: Hanging on the Telephone (Blondie)
1979: London Calling (The Clash)
1979: 6060-842 (The B-52s)
1979: Tour of AT&T's Network Operations Center (AT&T)
1979: How Pacific Bell Prepared for West Coast Earthquakes
1979: Switchboard Susan (Nick Lowe)
Siemens debuts digital telephone switching
ISDN development begins at Bell Labs
1980: Harold Black and the Invention of the Negative Feedback Amplifier (AT&T)
1980: We Make Telephones (Western Electric)
1980: Call Me (Blondie)
1981: NMT: World's first automatic cellular network launches
British Telecom separates from Post Office
1981: 867-5309/Jenny (Tommy Tutone)
1981: Hayes launches the PC modem
1982: UNIX: Making Computers Easier To Use (Bell Labs)
1982: ET phones home
1982: AT&T antitrust settlement
1982: 777-9311 (The Time)
1982: Judge Greene orders breakup of the Bell System
1983: Reagan phone VP Bush regarding Grenada situation
1983: Viewtron Introduction, Viewdata Corporation (AT&T)
1983: Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair) (Sheena Easton)
1983: Frenkiel helps launch commercial cellular service
NTT launches world's first ISDN service
1984: Nightmare on Elm Street
1984: Speedy Cutover Service, SXS to ESS (AT&T)
1984: How to Install Modular Jacks by Yourself (AT&T)
1984: Bell System breakup takes effect
1984: I Just Called to Say I Love You (Stevie Wonder)
1984: Mr. Telephone Man (New Edition)
1984: Operator (Midnight Star)
NTT privatized in Japan
Siemens launches first mobile phone
1985: Designing, Building and Testing the Trimline Phone (AT&T)
1985: Don't Lose My Number (Phil Collins)
1986: Ferris Bueller prank call
1986: Calling America (Electric Light Orchestra)
1986: Ettore Sottsass Enorme Phone
1986: McCaw builds the largest U.S. cellular carrier
1987: Joan Cusack in Broadcast News
1987: Telephone Call From Istanbul (Tom Waits)
1987: 853-5937 (Squeeze)
TAT-8: First transatlantic fiber optic cable
1988: Keith Haring Paints Pop Shop Phones
1988: Inventing the Laser (Bell Labs)
TPC-3: First transpacific fiber optic cable
1989: GSM specification completed
1989: President Bush talks to the space shuttle Columbia with Dan Quayle
1989: Callin' Baton Rouge (New Grass Revival)
1989: 100th Anniversary of the Payphone
1990: The Simpsons: Jacques Strap Prank Call
1990: The Simpsons: Al Coholic Prank Call
1990: The Simpsons: Oliver Clothesoff Prank Call
SS7 signaling becomes widespread
1991: Calling Elvis (Dire Straits)
1992: The Simpsons: Hugh Jazz Prank Call
1992: Caller ID becomes widespread
1994: Clinton in the oval office
1994: Star 69 (R.E.M.)
Deutsche Telekom AG becomes independent company
Northern Telecom becomes Nortel
VoIP demonstrated commercially
1995: Seinfeld: Kramer Becomes The Moviefone Man
1996: Homer Simpson makes calls (Robodialer episode)
1996: Scream
1996: Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand (Primitive Radio Gods)
Telecommunications Act of 1996
1996: Phony Calls ("Weird Al" Yankovic)
1997: Steve Jobs calls Bill Gates for money
France Telecom privatized
Nortel Networks renamed
1998: Croak pioneers Voice over IP at AT&T