Title: History of the telephone - Wikipedia
Headings: History of the telephone
History of the telephone
Contents
Telephone prehistory
Mechanical and acoustic devices
Electrical devices
Main article: Electrical telegraph
Invention of the telephone
Telephone exchange
Early telephone developments
Early commercial instruments
20th-century developments
Digital telephone technology
Main article: Digital telephony
Further information: Push-button telephone and Speech coding
Women's usage in the 20th century
21st-century developments
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Content: Another electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the Morse code signaling alphabet with Morse. America's first telegram was sent by Morse on January 6, 1838, across 2 miles (3 km) of wiring. Invention of the telephone
Main article: Invention of the telephone
Credit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed, and new controversies over the issue have arisen from time to time. Antonio Meucci, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elisha Gray amongst others, have all been credited with the telephone's invention. The early history of the telephone became and still remains a confusing morass of claims and counterclaims, which were not clarified by the huge mass of lawsuits to resolve the patent claims of many individuals and commercial competitors. The Bell and Edison patents, however, were commercially decisive, because they dominated telephone technology and were upheld by court decisions in the United States. Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876.