Exactly 150 years ago today...

Exactly 150 years ago today, March 10th, Alexander Graham Bell yelled, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!" after spilling battery acid on his pants.

Watson heard him in a new way - through an electromagnetic device that helped turn the sound waves into vibrations that could travel across telegraph wire. It's no accident Bell's lab was in the attic of the Charles Williams Jr.'s Manufacturer of Telegraph Instruments building at 109 Court Street in Boston's West End.

In March 1876, Bell was issued what has been argued as the most valuable patent in history - the first telephone. There's also a bit of debate, with others saying Elisha Gray or Antonio Meucci also have a claim to the "inventor" label.

But Bell's work was what built the foundation for the modern #Telecoms industry. Within a generation, the telephone spread throughout the entire United States and the world - often following telegraph lines and railroad tracks.

There are a few other elements of Bell's story that are not always known by folks already familiar with his invention of the telephone -

First, that he was involved in developing his technology to aid the deaf in communicating. His wife and mother were both hearing impaired.

Second, that after the telephone, his next interest was in aviation. He was a founder of the Aerial Experiments Association in 1907, just 4 years after Kitty Hawk.

Third, he was a Boston University professor on sabbatical at the time of the invention - a clear reminder that funding academic research helps fuel growth, technological advancement, and industrial progress.

Meanwhile, what of Mr. Watson - that famous assistant who came running to Bell's first telephonic communication?

He continued a few more years working on the telephone and accessories for it, all in his 20s. Then, he founded the Fore River Ship and Engine Company in Weymouth, MA. The shipyard was later part of General Dynamics. After selling his interest in the shipyard, he went into acting.

Now, we can look back at the long history of the telephone and the industry it built as a core part of America's Second Industrial Revolution, transforming the ways in which people were able to communicate.

That traces from the original iteration of AT&T (Ma Bell), through all of the breakups and re-consolidation that happened in recent memory - GTE, Bell Atlantic, Verizon, Lumen Technologies, Nokia Bell Labs, Ameritech, BellSouth, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell, and US West.

But communication infrastructure now is built on innovations spun from that original telephone, as technology allowed for fiber optics, Ethernet, #VOIP, Voicemail, and so much of our innovation is not independent invention, but improvements built on previous innovation.