50 Fun Facts About Alexander Graham Bell

Bell is credited with patenting which invention?

He considered it an intrusion on his real scientific work and refused to have one in his study.

On what date was Bell awarded the first US patent for the telephone?

It was patent number 174,465, covering the transmission of vocal sounds "by causing electrical undulations".

What were the first intelligible words transmitted by Bell's telephone?

He used a liquid transmitter similar to Elisha Gray's design, only as a proof of concept, and never used it in public again.

In which city was Bell born on March 3, 1847?

A stone inscription on South Charlotte Street marks the family home as his birthplace.

Why was Bell allowed to take the name "Graham" for his 11th birthday?

The name honoured Alexander Graham, a Canadian family friend being treated by his father; relatives still called him "Aleck".

What did the 12-year-old Bell build for his best friend's family flour mill?

It combined rotating paddles with nail brushes and was used at the mill for years; in return the boys got a workshop to "invent" in.

Which two members of Bell's immediate family were deaf, profoundly shaping his life's work?

He learned a finger language to sit beside his mother and spoke in modulated tones directly into her forehead so she could hear him.

What was the phonetic symbol system developed by Bell's father called?

He could recite written passages in Latin, Gaelic and even Sanskrit from the symbols without knowing the languages.

What did Bell and his brother build after seeing Wheatstone's speaking automaton in 1863?

When a bellows forced air through its windpipe it said a recognisable "Mama", delighting the neighbours.

What did visitors believe Bell's Skye Terrier could say after he manipulated its lips and vocal cords?

The dog growled continuously while Bell reached into its mouth to shape a crude "Ow ah oo ga ma ma".

Which German scientist's book on tone did Bell mistranslate, giving him his 'valuable blunder'?

He wrongly concluded the author had transmitted vowel sounds electrically, and reasoned that consonants and speech could follow.

Which disease killed both of Bell's brothers and prompted the family's move to Canada in 1870?

His parents feared their remaining son was also sickly; his father had once recovered his own health in Newfoundland.

Near which Ontario town did the Bell family buy their farm at Tutelo Heights in 1870?

He set up a workshop in the carriage house near a hollow he called his "dreaming place".

Which Indigenous language did Bell transcribe into his father's phonetic symbols, earning an Honorary Chief title?

He discovered the Six Nations Reserve across the river and took part in a ceremony wearing a headdress.

Which famous pupil, unable to see, hear or speak, came to Bell as a young child?

She later broke ground for his Volta Bureau in 1893 and said he devoted his life to piercing that "inhuman silence".

What was the "harmonic telegraph" Bell worked on in the early 1870s meant to do?

Western Union had hired Edison and Elisha Gray to solve the same problem of multiplexing telegraph lines.

Which two men financed Bell's experiments and shared in the telephone profits?

Both were fathers of deaf pupils of Bell's; one of them became his father-in-law.

What did Joseph Henry reply when Bell said he lacked the electrical knowledge to build his invention?

Henry had told him he had "the germ of a great invention", and the encouragement kept Bell going.

Which rival inventor filed a telephone patent caveat the same morning as Bell's application?

The debate over who arrived first at the patent office has never fully died down.

Which Italian inventor's 1834 telephone claim did the US House of Representatives acknowledge in 2002?

His working models were said to have been lost at a Western Union subsidiary's laboratory.

Bell's August 10, 1876 test over eight miles to Paris, Ontario, is often described as what?

The eight-mile test proved the telephone worked over distance, at least one way; the first two-way call came that October.

For how much did Bell and his partners offer to sell the telephone patent to Western Union?

The company said no; two years later its president reportedly said $25 million would have been a bargain.

Which monarch did Bell demonstrate the telephone to at Osborne House on January 14, 1878?

She found it "quite extraordinary" though "rather faint", and asked to buy the equipment.

Which emperor was the first person to buy stock in the Bell Telephone Company?

He had visited Bell's demonstration at the 1876 Centennial Exposition, and one of the first private telephones was installed in his palace at Petrópolis.

Which future Lord Kelvin called the telephone 'the greatest by far of all the marvels' at the 1876 Centennial?

The Philadelphia exhibition brought the telephone to international attention.

Whom in San Francisco did Bell call in the first ceremonial transcontinental telephone call in 1915?

The same two men had held the first two-way telephone conversation over two miles of wire in 1876.

How many patent court challenges did Bell Telephone face in 18 years, never losing a final trial?

Five went to the US Supreme Court; Bell's notebooks and family letters established the lineage of his experiments.

What was the inventor's wedding present to his bride Mabel Hubbard in 1877?

The couple then took a year-long honeymoon in Europe with a handmade telephone in the luggage.

What was the one unusual request Mabel made of her fiancé about his name?

From 1876 he signed himself "Alec Bell".

In which year did Bell, a British subject by birth, become a naturalised US citizen?

He later said he was "not one of those hyphenated Americans", though the US, Canada and the UK all claim him.

What does Beinn Bhreagh, the name of Bell's Nova Scotia estate, mean in Gaelic?

The estate overlooks Bras d'Or Lake near Baddeck on Cape Breton Island; he is buried on top of the mountain.

Which invention did Bell call "the greatest invention [I have] ever made, greater than the telephone"?

It sent voices on a beam of light 700 feet across Washington in 1880, nineteen years before radio carried a voice, and foreshadowed fibre optics.

Bell developed an early metal detector in 1881 to find a bullet in which wounded US president?

It failed; a steel-wire mattress was long blamed, but Bell concluded the bullet was simply too deep for the apparatus.

What did Bell's HD-4 hydrofoil achieve on September 9, 1919?

Powered by two 350-horsepower engines obtained from the US Navy, the record stood for a year.

What shape were the box kites Bell experimented with from 1898, covered in maroon silk?

The winged versions were named Cygnet I, II and III and were flown both unmanned and manned.

Which aviation group did Bell head, formed at Baddeck in October 1907 with his wife's money?

Its young members included motorcycle racer Glenn Curtiss, Lt Thomas Selfridge, Casey Baldwin and J. A. D. McCurdy.

Which aircraft made the first flight in Canada on February 23, 1909, from the ice of Bras d'Or Lake?

J. A. D. McCurdy flew it; Bell was so worried he had a doctor standing by.

What did Bell spend more than 30 years trying to breed on his Nova Scotia estate?

He wanted ewes with four functional nipples and enough milk for twin lambs; the work drew the attention of heredity researchers.

Under what pseudonym, an anagram of his name, did Bell write for National Geographic?

He was the society's second president from 1898 to 1903 and pushed the magazine's heavy use of photography.

Which magazine did Bell help establish with Gardiner Greene Hubbard in the early 1880s?

He also served as a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution from 1898 until his death.

Which French award, judged by Hugo and Dumas among others, did Bell win in 1880 for the telephone?

He used the 50,000 francs to found the Volta Laboratory in Washington, which improved Edison's phonograph with wax cylinders.

Which unit of sound level was named after Bell by Bell Labs?

Its tenth, the decibel, is the one everyone actually uses.

What happened for one minute at 6:25 p.m. Eastern Time at the end of Bell's funeral in 1922?

His wife asked mourners not to wear black, and his coffin was lined with the red silk from his kite experiments.

Who issued a commemorative £1 note for the 150th anniversary of Bell's birth in 1997?

The reverse shows his profile, telephone users through the ages, sign language, the geese that taught him flight and his sheep.

Which Canadian period detective series has featured Bell, played by John Tench, five times?

His first appearance was in the 2012 episode "Invention Convention".

Bell served from 1898 to 1903 as second president of which body, pushing photography into its magazine?

He was also a Regent of the Smithsonian for 24 years and a founder of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

How did Bell's Volta Laboratory improve Edison's phonograph in 1881?

Edison himself later adopted the upgrades; the lab was funded by Bell's 50,000-franc Volta Prize.

What did Bell sign to his wife Mabel, in reply to her whispered 'Don't leave me', shortly before he died in 1922?

He died of complications from diabetes at Beinn Bhreagh; his coffin was lined with the red silk from his kite experiments.

How many students were in the first class of Bell's Boston school for the deaf, opened in 1872?

He taught his father's Visible Speech system; Gardiner Greene Hubbard, whose daughter he later married, supplied the recommendation.

What did Mabel Bell ask guests not to do at her husband's funeral?

Soloist Jean MacDonald sang a verse of Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Requiem' at the service on the Beinn Bhreagh estate.