Thomas Edison

Today is the birthday of the Scottish-born inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, who was born in the year of our Lord 1847.

Bell had a deep interest in in the problems of the deaf all his life. In fact, he once told his family he would rather be remembered as a teacher of the deaf than as the inventor of the telephone.
Bell was only 29 when his basic telephone patent was granted in 1876.

Bell developed an electrical apparatus to locate bullets or other metal in the body in a vain effort to save President James Garfield's life. President Garfield had been shot by an assassin in 1881. Bell perfected an electric probe which was used in surgery for several years before the x-ray was discovered. He and his associates developed the method of making phonographs records on wax discs. Bell advocated a method of locating icebergs by detecting echoes from them. He worked on methods to make fresh water from vapor in the air for men adrift at sea in open boats. For 30 years, he directed breeding experiments in an attempt to develop a strain of sheep that would bear more than one lamb at a time.

Alexander Graham Bell became a citizen of the United States in 1882.

A story told bout Bell is that he disliked the telephone because it interrupted his experiments.