Photo by Tiko Giorgadze on Unsplash

Have you ever asked yourself who made the first-ever phone call? Or what that conversation was all about? If so, look no further. Here’s how it all went down.

To get one thing out of the way, it was the very person who invented the first practical telephone that also made the first phone call. His name was Alexander Graham Bell, and he was one of the foremost visionaries of his time. A Scottish-born scientist, inventor, and engineer, Bell’s work was profoundly influenced by his mother’s deafness, which led him to study acoustics, and elocution (formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone).

In 1876, Bell was granted a United States patent for a device that produced a clear replication of the human voice: the telephone. On March 10, 1876, he reportedly made the first call to his assistant, Thomas Watson, saying these simple words: “Mr. Watson–come here–I want to see you.”

The above photo depicts Bell on the telephone calling Chicago from New York during a demonstration in 1892. The phrase he used when he made the first telephone call had become so famous that he decided to say the exact same words in 1915 to officiate the opening of the transcontinental telephone lines connecting America’s East and West seaboards. Watson replied that, this time, it would take him a while to fulfill that request.