Alexander Graham Bell Credit: invent.org

Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone came out of his research into ways to improve the telegraph. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the inventor spent one year at a private school, two years at Edinburgh's Royal High School (from which he graduated at 14), and attended a few lectures at Edinburgh University and at University College in London, but he was mainly family-educated and self-taught.

Bell was not talented mechanically. Bell was fortunate to meet Thomas Watson, a repair mechanic , who helped him in making a device for transmitting sound by electricity.

On April 6, 1875, Bell was granted the patent for the multiple telegraph, which sent two signals at the same time. In 1875 he began to write the designs for the telephone. On March 7, 1876, the U.S. Patent Office granted him Patent Number 174,465 covering, the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically.

Upon completion of inventing the telephone, Bell continued his experiments in communication,that led to the invention of the photophone-transmission of sound on a beam of light. This would help lead the way to fiber optics. He also worked in medical research and invented techniques for teaching speech to the deaf.