Alexander Graham Bell Didn't Invent the Telephone
He was just the first to patent it. An Italian immigrant named Antonio Meucci built a working telephone in 1856 — twenty years before Bell filed his patent
Alexander Graham Bell Didn't Invent the Telephone
He was just the first to patent it.
An Italian immigrant named Antonio Meucci built a working telephone in 1856 — twenty years before Bell filed his patent. Meucci developed over 30 different telephone prototypes. But he was poor and couldn't afford the $10 fee to maintain his patent protection.
It gets worse.
Bell and Meucci shared a workshop in the 1870s. The lab conveniently "lost" Meucci's working models. Shortly after, Bell filed his patent.
And on the exact same day Bell filed — February 14, 1876 — another inventor named Elisha Gray filed paperwork for a nearly identical device. Bell's was entry #5 that day. Gray's was #39. Bell won the patent by hours.
He then spent years fighting off 587 lawsuits from other inventors. In 2002, the U.S. Congress formally recognized Antonio Meucci as the true inventor of the telephone.
Your teacher gave credit to the guy who got to the patent office first — not the guy who actually invented it.
📞 ≠ 🔔
What other 'inventors' got famous for someone else's work? Drop it in the comments!
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