On this day in 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call by saying "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."

Bell was born into a family deeply interested in speech and hearing. Both his father and grandfather were teachers of elocution, and throughout his life Bell had a keen interest in teaching the deaf to speak. Both his mother and the woman he married--Mabel Hubbard, one of his pupils--were deaf.