Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone.

Bell submits his application for an “electrical speech machine” at the post office in the Old State House – just hours before a competing one is submitted by Elisha Gray. Bell is declared the “rightful inventor” by the Supreme Court and issued Patent 174,465 on March 7, 1876. After replacing the magnets and batteries in his original design with the platinum needle and sulfuric acid that was in Gray’s design (suggesting that he had seen the details of his rival’s application), Bell perfects “his” invention in March 1876.*