Bell Receives Patent: The Telephone Era Begins

Alexander Graham Bell was granted US Patent 174,465 on March 7, 1876, for 'the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically.' The patent, filed on February 14, is widely considered the most valuable single patent in history. Bell demonstrated the device to the world at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where Emperor Pedro II of Brazil exclaimed, 'My God, it talks!' The patent faced over 600 legal challenges, including claims from Elisha Gray, Antonio Meucci, and dozens of others who argued they had invented the telephone first. Bell won every case. Hungarian engineer Tivadar Puskas, who visited Bell's laboratory, immediately conceived the idea of the telephone exchange, a switchboard that could connect any two subscribers, which proved to be the crucial innovation that made the telephone commercially viable. Within a decade of the patent, telephone networks connected cities across America, and Bell's company had become the most powerful monopoly in the country.