Q 01/05

What did Alexander Graham Bell say to his assistant in the first intelligible telephone call in March 1876?

A) 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you'

B) 'Hello, can you hear me?'

C) 'What hath God wrought'

D) 'Ahoy, ahoy, Mr. Watson'

Answer · why

A) 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you'

Bell later refused to keep a telephone in his study, calling his invention an intrusion on his real work.

Q 02/05

In which city was Alexander Graham Bell born in 1847?

A) Boston

B) Edinburgh

C) Toronto

D) London

Answer · why

B) Edinburgh

Both his mother and his wife were deaf, which shaped his work on speech and hearing; he died in Nova Scotia in 1922.

Q 03/05

What happened across North American telephone networks during Bell's funeral in 1922?

A) Every phone rang once

B) All calls were free for a day

C) Service observed a moment of silence

D) Operators read a tribute

Answer · why

C) Service observed a moment of silence

Bell also served as the second president of the National Geographic Society and wrote for its magazine as H. A. Largelamb.

Q 04/05

Which Italian inventor's telephone work was acknowledged by a US House resolution in 2002?

A) Guglielmo Marconi

B) Alessandro Volta

C) Innocenzo Manzetti

D) Antonio Meucci

Answer · why

D) Antonio Meucci

Credit for the telephone has always been disputed; Elisha Gray filed a caveat the same day as Bell's patent application.

Q 05/05

Which German inventor transmitted voice by electric signals in 1861, fifteen years before Bell?

A) Johann Philipp Reis

B) Werner von Siemens

C) Heinrich Hertz

D) Emil Berliner

Answer · why

A) Johann Philipp Reis

The word telephone itself comes from Greek for 'far' and 'voice'.