June 10, 1837 - Charles Wheatstone, of Hanover Square, Middlesex, and William Fothergill Cooke, of Breeds Place, Hastings, received an English patent for electric "Five Needle Telegraph"; required six wires between each of its stations; June 10, 1840 - received U. S. patent for an "Improvement in the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph" ('new and useful improvements in giving signals and sounding alarms in distant places by means of electric currents transmitted through metallic circuits"); 10 days before Morse received patent, but Morse given priority as first inventor; Morse patent described prototype of famous dot-dash code; Wheatstone and Cooke had the priority in U.K.; their telegraph had no means of recording messages (Morse regarded it as great disadvantage).

January 21, 1840 - Charles Wheatstone and W.F. Cooke received earliest English alphabetic telegraph patent; ABC telegraph was popular in England and Europe, did not require  trained telegraphist to read, send the messages; earliest practical application of serial binary coded digital communication.

June 20, 1840 - Samuel F. B. Morse, of New York, NY, received a patent for "Telegraph Signs" ("Improvement in the Mode of Communicating Information by Signals by the Application of Electro-Magnetism"); "American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph".

1843 - First public telegraph line, from Paddington to Slough.

May 24, 1844 - American inventor Samuel F.B. Morse inaugurated world's first commercial telegraph line in  demonstration witnessed by members of Congress; dispatched telegraph message ("What Hath God Wrought?" from the Bible, Numbers 23:23 -suggested to Morse by Annie Ellworth, daughter of the commissioner of patents) from U.S. Capitol to Alfred Vail at railroad station in Baltimore, MD; message telegraphed back to Capitol a moment later by Vail.

June 5, 1846 - Telegraph line opened between Philadelphia and Baltimore.

June 27, 1847 - New York and Boston linked by telegraph wires.

June 10, 1848 - First telegraph link established between New York City and Chicago.

May 1, 1849 - Samuel F. B. Morse received a patent for a "Telegraph" ("improvement in electric telegraphs"); telegraph register; incorporated basic features of 1844 receiver and method for marking dots and dashes on paper.

1851 - Group of businessmen in Rochester, NY formed The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, Western Union's predecessor company; 1856 - changed name to The Western Union Telegraph Company, signified union of "western" telegraph lines with eastern lines into one system, following acquisition of a series of competing telegraph systems; 1861 - Western Union completed first transcontinental telegraph line, provided fast, coast-to-coast communications during U.S. Civil War; 1866 - introduced first stock ticker, provided brokerage firms with New York Stock Exchange quotations; 1870 - launched time service, helped to standardize time nationally (held  distinction as "The Nation's Timekeeper" for nearly a century); 1871 - Western Union Money Transfer® service introduced; became company's primary business; 1995 - First Financial Management Corporation completed $7 billion merger with First Data Corporation; Western Union Financial Services, Inc. became First Data Corporation subsidiary; 2005 - world's largest money transfer business with $4 billion in revenue - wired more than 275 million transactions per year to 271,000 agencies in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

November 13, 1851 - Telegraph service between London and Paris began.

May 20, 1856 - David Edward Hughes. of Louisville, KY, received patent for a "Telegraph"; first telegraph ticker that successfully printed type; 1857 - sold rights for $100,000 to the Commercial Co.

May 19, 1857 - William F. Channing, of Boston, MA, Moses G. Farmer, of Salem, MA, received a patent for an "Electromagnetic Fire Alarm Telegraph for Cities" ("to give an instantaneous and definite alarm, either general or local, in a city or town, in case of fire"); first municipal electric fire alarm system; used call boxes,  circuit  between signal station, central station, alarm station with automatic signaling to indicate fire's location.

August 4, 1858 - Cyrus W. Field completed Atlantic cable, established telegraphic communication between U.S. and England; August 5, 1858 - ship Niagra anchored at Newfoundland coast, laid 1016 miles of cable; days later other end of cable was successfully landed in Ireland; new cable worked fine for about four weeks, then line went dead; 1866 - improved cable was laid successfully. 1854 - Cyrus West Field conceived idea of the telegraph cable, secured charter to lay a well-insulated line across the floor of Atlantic Ocean; obtained aid of British and American naval ships; 1857 - made four unsuccessful attempts; July 1858 - four British and American vessels (Agamemnon, Valorous, Niagara, Gorgon) met in mid-ocean for fifth attempt; July 29 - Niagara and Gorgon, with their load of cable, departed for Trinity Bay, Newfoundland; Agamemnon and Valorous embarked for Valentia, Ireland; August 5 - cable successfully laid, stretched nearly 2,000 miles across Atlantic at depth often of more than two miles; August 16 - President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria exchanged formal introductory and complimentary messages; September - cable proved weak, current insufficient, ceased functioning.

August 16, 1858 - Telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable; began transmission at 10:50am, completed at 4:30am next day, took nearly 18-hrs to reach Newfoundland - 99 words, consisting of 509 letters, averaged about 2-min per letter; message forwarded across Newfoundland by overhead wire supported on poles; across Cabot Strait by submarine cable to Aspy Bay (Dingwall), Cape Breton; by overhead wire across eastern Canada and Maine, via Boston to New York; earliest Transatlantic cable went dead within a month.

October 8, 1860 - Telegraph line between Los Angeles and San Francisco opened.

1869 - Elisha Gray, customer, bought interest of George Shawk, part owner of Cleveland manufacturing shop associated with Western Union telegraph companies; formed Gray and Barton, partnership with Enos N. Barton, former chief telegraph operator for Western Union at Rochester, NY; Anson Stager, Western Union general superintendent, joined partnership; 1872 - reorganized as the Western Electric Manufacturing Company after Stager convinced Western Union president William Orton to invest in manufacturing enterprise; became Western Union's principal supplier; 1875 - Gray sold his interest, retired; 1878 - Western Union established American Speaking Telephone Co., Western Electric agreed to manufacture telephones for new company (already distributor of telephone equipment for new Bell company); September 1878 - Bell Telephone Co. sued to protect Alexander Graham Bell's patents from infringement by Western Union; November 1879 - Western Union abandoned field; surrendered all  patents, claims, network, inventory in return for 20% of phone rentals over next 17 years (life of Bell patents); new company, American Bell Telephone Company, chartered; 1880 - largest electrical manufacturing company in United States; 1881 - Alexander Graham Bell acquired controlling interest; 1882 - joined Bell System, became Bell's exclusive manufacturer of telephones in United States, sold only to American Bell Telephone Company (leased phones to regional "operating" companies, leased phones to end users); long distance service (1881) handled by parent company, local service by operating companies, manufacture by Western Electric; 1907 - Theodore N. Vail, President of AT&T, combined AT&T (formerly American Bell), Western Electric engineering departments into single organization, Western Electric Research Laboratories;  1925 - sold International Western Electric Company subsidiary to ITT; Research Laboratories (engineering department) became Bell Laboratories, greatest private research organization in world; December 23, 1947 - transistor invented (3 Bell Labs scientists  received 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for invention); 1956 - Justice Department antitrust consent decree ordered Bell System to divest all non-telephone activities (except those involving national defense); sold Canadian manufacturing holdings;  January 1, 1984 - AT&T agreed to divest local Bell telephone companies; established new unit, AT&T Technologies;  assumed Western Electric's charter; February 1996 - AT&T Technologies systems and technology units, combined with Bell Labs, renamed Lucent Technologies; April 1996 - Lucent went public; September 30, 1996 - AT&T spin off of Lucent Technologies completed; December 1, 2006 - completed merger with Alcatel (Société Alsacienne de Constructions Atomiques, de Télécommunications et d' Électronique); renamed Alcatel-Lucent.

June 7, 1870 - Frank L. Pope, of Elizabeth, NJ, and Thomas A. Edison received a patent for an "Improvement in Printing-Telegraph Instruments" ("communications may not only be recorded automatically in printed characters, at one or more distant points, at the pleasure of transmitting operator, but by which this result may be accomplished with greater certainty and in a much more simple manner").

July 30, 1872 - Mahlon Loomis received a patent for an  "Improvement in Telegraphing" ("new and Improved Mode of Telegraphing and of Generating Light, Heat and Motive-Power"); wireless radio.

October 22, 1872 - Thomas A. Edison received patents for an improvement in "Paper for Chemical Telegraphs" ( using a very thin paste of flour and water that with a solution of potassium iodide would penetrate the paper fabric) and for an improved "Apparatus for Perforating Paper for Telegraph Use" (a compact machine to punch perforated tape used to transmit telegraphic messages - a single hole for a dot or three holes for a dash).

February 4, 1873 - Thomas A. Edison was received a patent for an "Improvement in Circuits for Chemical Telegraphs"; method to sharpen the pulses, reduce problem of marks running together on chemical paper from electric action of one pulsation from telegraph wire not clearing before next followed.

July 1, 1873 - Thomas Edison received a patent for an "Improvement to Circuits for Chemical Telegraphs"; concerned a method to reduce problem of marks running together on chemical paper from electric action of one pulsation from telegraph wire not clearing before next followed; May 3, 1892 - Thomas Edison received a patent for a speaking telegraph.

May 26, 1874 - Thomas A. Edison received a patent for  "Automatic Telegraphy and in Perforators Therefor"; produced  message directly onto strip of paper such that it was ready to be folded, sent to its destination immediately; letters formed by 5x5 square of 25 punch wires.

January 19, 1875 - Thomas A. Edison received a patent for a "Improvement in Telegraph Apparatus".

June 3, 1875 - Alexander Bell used "harmonic telegraph" to transmit a twanging sound from a reed vibrated by Bell’s voice along wires to Watson; transmitted voice-like sounds, words were not recognizable; June 3, 1880 - Alexander Graham Bell transmitted first wireless telephone message on newly-invented photophone; projected his voice through an instrument towards a mirror; voice vibrations caused similar vibrations in mirror; Bell directed sunlight into the mirror, which captured and projected the mirror's vibrations which could be deconstructed back into sound at the receiving end of the projection; photophone functioned similarly to the telephone but photophone used light to project information, telephone used electricity.

February 18, 1876 - Direct telegraph link established between Britain and New Zealand.

August 31, 1880 - Thomas A. Edison received a patent for an "Electro-Chemical Receiving-Telephone" ("to transmit and reproduce over telegraoh-wires speech or other sounds telephonically").

January 19, 1881 - Western Union (William Vanderbilt's telegraph company) acquired Atlantic and Pacific Company (founded by Jay Gould) = ploy for Gould takeover of Western Union; raised doubts about Western Union's leadership and dominance over the industry - WU stock dropped, bought Gould's company; Gould instigated post-acquisition bear raid on WU......bought stock while others sold; gained majority control over WU.

November 29, 1881 - Francis Blake, of Weston, MA, received a patent  for a "Speaking-Telephone".

1882 - Mechanical department of Bell Canada established; 1895 - Northern Electric & Manufacturing Company Limited incorporated (branch plant of Western Electric); 1914 - merged with manufacturer of rubber-coated wire for electrical industry; 1930s - expanded beyond telephone equipment, sold radio and broadcasting sound equipment, electric sound equipment, other lines of electrical equipment; 1956 - Justice Department antitrust consent decree created Northern Telecom; 1990 - acquired STC PLC (onetime manufacturer for Western Electric); moved to world's third largest supplier of telecommunications equipment (from sixth).

January 17, 1882 - Thomas A. Edison received patent  for a "Telephone"; carbon microphone; finely divided conducting material, such as carbon, between metal cups mounted on arms attached to mouthpiece diaphragm; changes in current correspond to pitch and amplitude of sound; one arm conducts electrical current to carbon button, other from it.

January 17, 1882 - Leroy Firman of Chicago, IL, received a patent for a "Multiple Switchboard for Telephone Exchanges"; telephone switchboard; addressed problem of increasing numbers of subscribers; handled exchange of thousand or more subscribers with line status information exchanged between switchmen; assigned to Western Electric Manufacturing Co.

April 7, 1885 - Granville T. Woods, of Cincinnati, OH, received a patent for an "Apparatus for Transmission of Messages by Electricity"; assigned to American Bell Telephone Company.

August 24, 1886 - Thomas A. Edison received a patent for an "Electrode for Telephone-Transmitters" ("to increase the effectiveness in use of such electrodes").

February 4, 1890 - Thomas A. Edison received a patent for a "Quadruplex Telegraph"; designed to transmit and receive four independent messages over a single wire, without interference with each other, two in one direction and two in the opposite direction; September 30, 1890 - Thomas A. Edison received a patent for "Telegraphy".

March 10, 1891 - Almon B. Strowger, an undertaker from Kansas City, MO, received a patent for an "Automatic Telephone-Exchange" ("improvement in automatic, telephonic, telegraphic, and other electrical exchanges"); October 1891 - Auto Electric Company formed; November 3, 1892 - first Strowger telephone exchange opened in LaPorte, IN, with about seventy-five subscribers; used three keys, one for each digit of a three-digit number; subscriber pressed each key the appropriate number of times for each digit; November 29, 1892 - received a second patent for an "Automatic Telephone and Other Electrical Exchange".

March 18, 1891 - First telephone link between London & Paris.

June 2, 1891 - Thomas A. Edison received a patent for a "Sextuplex Telegraph".

October 18, 1892 - The first long distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was opened; Chicago Mayor Hempstead Washburn greeted his New York counterpart, Hugh J. Grant.

November 3, 1892 - First automatic telephone exchange, using switching device invented by Almon B. Strowger, opened to public in LaPorte, IN, with about seventy-five subscribers; did not use a dial to enter desired number; used three keys, one for each digit of a three-digit number (subscriber pressed each key appropriate number of times for each digit).

1896 - First dial phones (with projecting vanes instead of holes) used in Milwaukee's City Hall; 1912 - first Strowger exchange opened in UK at Epsom in Surrey.

December 12, 1896 - Guglielmo Marconi gave first public demonstration of radio at Toynbee Hall, London.

January 15, 1897 - Lee De Forest, of New York, NY, received a patent for a "Device for Amplifying Feeble Electrical Currents" ("...such as telephone-currents").

May 31, 1898 - French engineer Pierre Azaria sets up the Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE); 1925 - acquired Compagnie Générale des Câbles de Lyon; 1966 - acquired Société Alsacienne de Constructions Atomiques, de Télécommunications et d'Electronique (Alcatel); 1985 - Alsthom Atlantique changed to Alsthom; CIT-Alcatel merged with Thomson Télécommunications, renamed Alcatel; 1987 - went private; 1991 - name changed to Alcatel Alsthom; 1998 - renamed Alcatel; 2005 - record year in terms of results, contracts, events, agreements (network transformation solutions); December 1, 2006 - completed merger with Lucent Technologies; renamed Alcatel-Lucent.

1899 - Cleyson Leroy Brown, Jacob Brown started telephone business in Abilene, KS with three people; competed with Bell System; 1900 - installed their first long-distance circuit; October 1902 - formed Brown Telephone Company; March 1903 - joined with 14 Kansas independents, incorporated Union Telephone and Telegraph Company to provide long-distance service to Kansas City; September 1911 - Brown consolidated the Brown Telephone Company with three independents, formed United Telephone Company, second largest telephone company in Kansas; 1925 - formed United Telephone and Electric (UT&E) to purchase stock in subsidiary companies across widely scattered geographical areas; 1937 - reorganization plan approved; 1939 - company dissolved, assets absorbed by United Utilities, Incorporated; 1950s - nation's third largest independent telephone company; 1972 - name changed to United Telecommunications; 1986 - launched long distance services under Sprint brand name; 1992 - name changed to Sprint Corporation; 1995 - offered wireless service under Sprint PCS brand; August 13, 2005 - merged with Nextel (founded as FleetCall in 1987) in $35 billion deal (#3 position among U.S. wireless carriers, 44 million subscribers, 80,000 employees nationwide).

January 11, 1898 - Alexander E. Keith, John Erickson and Charles J. Erickson, of Chicago, received a patent for a "Calling Device for Telephone-Exchanges"; dial telephone; assigned patent to the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange of Illinois.

March 17, 1899 - The first-ever radio distress call was sent, summoned assistance for a merchant ship off the coast of England.

March 27, 1899 - Marconi transmitted across the English Channel from Boulogne, France, to Dover, England at the request of the French Government, which was considering purchasing rights to the invention in France; both transmitter and receiver used a well-insulated copper wire, hung from a 150-ft high mast; messages were exchanged over the 32 miles, trials continued for several days at a speed of up to fifteen words a minute; success made possible communications without expensive undersea cables.

June 19, 1900 - Michael I. Pupin, of Yonkers, NY, professor of electromechanics at Columbia University, received patent for the "Art of Reducing Attenuation of Electrical Waves and Apparatus"; long distance telephony; improved quality of long-distance telephone and telegraph transmission by inserting coils in the long lines at intervals.

December 12, 1901 - Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproved detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less; message--simply the Morse-code signal for the letter "s"--traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada; transatlantic radio signal had been headed into space when it was reflected off the ionosphere and bounced back down toward Canada.

August 12, 1902 - Reginald A. Fessenden, of Manteo, NC, received a patent for "Wireless Signaling" ("selective signaling in systems where the signal is transmitted by waves or impulses"); radiotelegraphy, wireless transmission of electromagnetic waves, especially reproduction of words or other audible signals.

December 14, 1902 - The laying of first cable across the Pacific Ocean began as the British Cable Ship Silvertown left San Francisco, CA for Hawaii; cable laid across 2,277 nautical miles in two weeks; January 1, 1903 - first test message telegraphed to President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington; cables laid from Honolulu to Midway, Midway to Guam, Guam to Manila; January 5, 1903 - public use began.

January 19, 1903 - King Edward VII and President Theodore Roosevelt exchanged greetings in a coded radio exchange between Cape Cod and Cornwall, England.

May 23, 1903 - Paris and Rome were linked by telephone for first time.

July 3, 1903 - First cable across the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii, Midway, Guam and Manila was completed and spliced at Manila, Philippine Islands; July 4, 1903 - President Theodore Roosevelt sent first official message over new cable; ended Hawaii’s isolation by connecting it to the mainland U.S. and the rest of the world. 1902 - all-British telegraph line from Canada to Australia and New Zealand was first line to cross the Pacific Ocean.

February 1, 1904 - CQD established as international distress signal; sometimes thought to mean, "Come Quick Danger"; "CQ" originated in England as a general call on a landline wire, preceded time signals and special notices as a sign for "all stations"; Marconi company suggested "CQD" for a distress signal.

April 26, 1904 - Bell Telephone Company of Antwerp Belgium forms.

November 16, 1904 -  John Ambrose Fleming invented the first electron tube, a diode thermionic valve capable of actuating a telephone receiver. 

December 28, 1904 - The first weather reports relayed by wireless telegraphy were published in London.

March 28, 1905 - Cornelius Ehret of Rosemont, Pennsylvania patented the radio fax in the U.S.; called "a system for transmitting intelligence"; faxing did not become a practical mode of communication until the 1920s, high-speed faxes were not available until the 1940s.

June 26, 1906 - Lee De Forest, of New York, NY, received a patent for an "Oscillation-Responsive Device", ("for detecting feeble electrical currents or oscillations in general, and especially such currents or oscillations which are developed in wireless-telegraph receiving systems"); November 13, 1906 - received a second patent for an "Oscillation-Responsive Device".

October 3, 1906 - The second international conference on wireless telegraphy in Berlin adopts SOS as international distress signal, replacing the call sign CQD.

November 22, 1906 -  International Radio Telegraphic Convention adopts the SOS distress signal.

January 12, 1908 - A wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

February 18, 1908 - Lee De Forest, of New York, NY, received a patent for "Space Telegraphy"; grid electrode tube.

January 19, 1909 - Thomas A. Edison received a patent for "Telegraphy" ("arrangement by which a neutral relay designed to be operated by variations in current strength will be unaffected by reversals in current in the circuit in which the relay is included").

August 11, 1909 - The liner S.S. Arapahoe was the first ship to use the S.O.S. radio distress call after a propeller shaft snapped off the coast at Cape Hatteras, NC. Previously, the distress code CQD (standardized by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. in 1904) had been used as a maritime distress call. The second International Radio Telegraphic Convention (1906) proposed the alternative SOS for its distinctive sound. It was ratified as an international standard in 1908.

August 20, 1911 - The first cable message sent around the world from the U.S. by commercial telegraph was transmitted from New York City (left the New York Times building at 7:00 pm, received at 7:16 pm after traveling nearly 29,000 miles through 16 relays via the Azores, Gibraltar, India, Philippines, Midway, Guam, Hawaii and San Francisco).

May 17, 1912 - London newspaper, The Times, reported that new automatic telephone equipment was in place at Epsom for testing; provided 320 Epson telephone subscribers the ability to dial other numbers in the town themselves instead of having to ask the operator to get the number for them; marked the beginning of the telephone automation in Britain, which had already arrived in America, Canada, and other countries.

1915 - First automatic telephone exchange in Britain.

October 21, 1915 - AT&T made the first experimental transatlantic radiotelephone speech communication, using recently developed vacuum-tube transmitters and receivers (an advancement in range over groundbreaking alternator-transmitter tests in 1906).

May 6, 1916 - Navy Department made first successful U.S. radio telephone ship-to-shore conversation via AT&T telephone and telegraph circuits with all navy yards and radio stations in the U.S.; Secretary of the Navy gave orders for the next day's movement to the captain of the battleship New Hampshire, anchored off Fortress Monroe;  first time Navy operated ship direct from the department by wireless telephone. 

March 16, 1919 - Wireless telephone invented, enabled air pilots to talk in flight.

October 3, 1922 - Charles F. Jenkins used city telephone lines  for first time in U.S. for transmission of facsimile photo in Washington, DC from 1519 Connecticut Ave. to U.S. Navy Radio Station NOF at Anacostia, DC.

October 14, 1922 -The first automated telephones, Pennsylvania exchange in New York City, became operational.

March 3, 1923 - First radio facsimile transmission made in U.S. to distant point sent photographic image from U.S. Navy Radio Station NOF, at Anacostia, DC, to Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia, PA; October 3, 1922 - photographs had been sent as facsimile transmission over city telephone line within Washington DC using a photographic plate to record the signal received at the radio station NOF.

May 18, 1923 - Antoine Barnay submitted first patent application on a rotary-dial telephone, in France.

April 16, 1924 - First radio-transmission of wireless: Matthaus Passion.

November 30, 1924 - First photograph fax sent by radio across Atlantic was received in New York.

April 18, 1925 - First U.S. commercial transcontinental radio transmission of radio facsimile sent from San Francisco, CA to New York City; nine photographs transmitted, each took seven minutes.

April 5, 1927 - Antoine Barnay, of Paris, FR, received a patent for a "System for Transmitting Electrical Impulses" ("suitable more particularly in automatic telephone systems, and generally in all 'step-by-step switching systems...in which the connection is established by means of electrical impulses sent over the two wires of the calling line in series"); rotary-dial telephone.

June 27, 1929 - Scientists at Bell Laboratories revealed system for transmitting television pictures.

March 27, 1930 - First U.S. radio broadcast from ship at sea.

April 29, 1930 - Telephone connection England-Australia went into service.

May 8, 1933 - Radio Engineering Laboratories of Long Island City, New York installed first police radio system in Eastchester Township, New York; connected headquarters to patrol cars,  patrol cars to one another.

January 12, 1937 - Chester S. Lawton, of Ridgewood, NJ, and Melville H. Bloomer, of Halifax, NS, received first patent for a "Plough for Laying Submarine Cables"; designed to feed a cable at the same time that it would dig a trench in the ocean bed; could be used at depths up to a half mile; assigned to Western Union telegraph Company; June 14, 1938 - first transatlantic cable of high-speed permalloy was buried.

June 5, 1938 - Homer Dudley with Richard Riesz and Stanley Watkins, Bell Telephone scientists, exhibited first machine to produce intelligible speech-like sounds to the public at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA; called "Pedro, the Voder"; could also imitate the sound of various farm animals; a spectrum-synthesis device operated from a finger keyboard and foot pedal pitch control; duplicated an important physiological characteristic of the vocal system, that the excitation could be voiced or unvoiced.

September 11, 1946 - First mobile long-distance car-to-car telephone conversation took place between Houston, TX and St. Louis, MO.

June 30, 1948 - Federal Communications Commission authorized telephone recording devices for public use in U.S.; when devices being used, periodic "beep" tone signal used to advise those on the telephone line that their conversations were being recorded.

January 14, 1949 - Department of Justice filed anti-trust suit against AT&T designed to break choke hold over industry by forcing the company to relinquish ownership of Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary; 1956 - suit settled, AT&T consented to limit the scope of its business to national phone network,  government jobs.

September 29, 1950 - Bell Telephone Company tested first automatic telephone answering machine.

November 10, 1951 - Direct-dial, coast-to-coast telephone service began as Mayor M. Leslie Denning of Englewood, NJ called his counterpart in Alameda, CA; able to begin talking 18 sec. after dialling;10-digit North American Numbering Plan for area codes introduced.

April 25, 1954 - Bell labs announced first solar battery.

March 4, 1955 - First radio facsimile transmission sent across continent.

October 4, 1955 - Bell Telephone made world's first solar-powered telephone call.

September 25, 1956 - World's first transatlantic telephone cable system began operating (Clarenville, Newfoundland to Oban, Scotland); previous cables had been limited to telegraph transmissions.

March 2, 1959 - Southern New England Telephone Company (New Haven, CT) tested an experimental push-button phone to see if customers dial fewer wrong numbers using new design.

September 5, 1959 - First trunk dialing system from public call-box inaugurated in Bristol, UK; countrywide service intended to replace Button A and Button B pre-payment system.

September 22, 1959 - First telephone cable linking Europe and United States opened.

March 22, 1960 - Arthur L. Schawlow, of Madison, NJ, and Charles H. Townes, of New York, NY, received a patent for "Masers and Maser Communications Systems"; first laser patent; assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc.

August 12, 1960 - First successful communications satellite, Echo I, put into Earth's orbit to relay voice and TV signals; August 13, 1960 - first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place with help of Echo 1, balloon satellite.

July 10, 1962 - Telstar communications satellite, first geosynchronous communications satellite, launched from Cape Canaveral, FL to relay TV and telephone signals between the United States and Europe; set stage for far easier access to information, with much greater speed; made possible first live television signals sent across the Atlantic. Viewers in France and England saw President Kennedy conduct a press conference, and audiences in the United States watched French singer Yves Montand and the changing of the guard at England’s Buckingham Palace.

December 13, 1962 - Relay I, first U.S. communications earth satellite to transmit telephone, television, teleprinter and facsimile signals launched; January 3, 1963 - first test patterns transmitted when solar cells had built up sufficient battery charge.

May 7, 1963 - United States launched AT&T's Telstar II communications satellite; transmitted first transatlantic TV program seen in color on tenth orbit; built with shielding against radiation (damaged AT&T's original Telstar satellite).

October 21, 1963 - Michigan Bell Telephone Company placed in service first trimline telephone in the U.S.; dial and hang-up button were integrated into the handpiece midway between the microphone and speaker, unnecessary to reach for a remote base in order to dial a call; not commercially available throughout service area until August 2,1965, for an optional additional monthly charge of $1.

November 18, 1963 - First telephone in U.S. with push buttons instead of rotary dial was placed in commercial service in Carnegie, Greensburg, PA; Touch-Tone telephone had 10 push buttons, manufactured by the Western Electric Manufacturing.

April 6, 1965 - U. S. launched Intelsat 1 ("Early Bird"), first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite; satellite’s orbital speed matched movement of earth, appeared stationary in sky, never dipped below horizon; could provide simultaneous telephone links or one television link; June 28, 1965 - began providing television, voice services between America and Europe: capacity for 240 voice circuits or one black and white TV channel.

October 8, 1965 - London's Post Office Tower operationally opened as telecommunications tower for TV, radio broadcasting and to carry all microwave traffic into, out of city (now operated by British Telecom). 

February 16, 1968 - Haleyville, AL inaugurated first telephone system in U.S. to use 911 as universal emergency services telephone number.

March 1, 1970 - Combined efforts of AT&T, British Post Office (which also then handled the British telephone system) made direct-dialed transatlantic phone calls possible between the US and Britain.

April 3, 1973 - Inventor Martin Cooper placed first portable phone call; ''shoebox'' phone replaced car phone that weighed more than 30 pounds, cost thousands of dollars.

November 21, 1974 - United States filed antitrust suit to break up AT&T.

October 1, 1981 - British government created British Telecom as public corporation; followed study's recommendation to split Post Office into separate postal, telecommunications units.