The History of the Telephone

I think there is more to The History of the Telephone than Alexander Grahm bell, the first name that jumps to our mind.
According to an article I found,
The invention of the telephone has a long intriguing and contested history. There exists great dispute over who deserves credit as the first inventor of the telephone.

According to dictionary.com the telephone is “An instrument that converts voice and other sound signals into a form that can be transmitted to remote locations and that receives and reconverts waves into sound signals.” The word telephone originates from a combination of the Greek words “tele” meaning “afar, far off,” and “phone” meaning ““sound, voice.”

Some historians suggest Francis Bacon predicted the telephone in 1627 in his book New Utopia, where he described a long speaking tube. This might have been foreshadowing since not enough was known about the transmission of electricity to make the concept a reality in that era. It was not until 1854 that a French investigator Bourseul suggested that transmitting speech electrically over distance could be possible.

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci is the earliest endorsed claim to the invention of a voice communication apparatus. Meucci constructed a form of telephone in 1857 as a way to connect his second-floor bedroom to his basement laboratory. In Italy, Meucci is recognized as the inventor of the telephone. The Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti recognizes Meucci as the original founder of the telephone in 1860.

European physicists credit German inventor, Philip Reis, as the first to transmit a sentence by telephone in 1860. Reis demonstrated his device 16 years before Bell took out a patent for a similar device. In 1872, Prof Vanderwyde demonstrated Reis's device in New York where it was supposedly seen by Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. On March 22, 1876, a New York Times editorial entitled "The Telephone," endorsed Philip Reis as the first inventor.

Bell evolved ideas from Reis's device in his subsequent development of the telephone. Bell enlisted Thomas Watson, an experienced machinist, to assist him in his research. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented the electro-magnetic transmission of vocal sound by undulatory electric current.

Follow the link and read more on the history of telephone. I would like to know what someone would read in 100 years, under the same heading.

Links;
History of telephone according to telecost

Tags: The History of the Telephone, Francis Bacon, speaking tube, Bourseul, Meucci, Philip Reis, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell