On 7 March 1926 (95 years ago today), a telephone conversation was established between the post office in London and Bell Laboratories in New York, linked through a short-wave radio signal. This was the very first two-way transatlantic phone call! And it took place exactly 50 years after Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. By 1927 the short-wave system was commercially successful, charging about $45 for a three-minute call, and handling about 300,000 calls per year. Undersea telegraph cables had been laid in the late 1850s, but their technology was much too limited in signal strength and speed to be suitable for audio transmission. The first telephone cables were laid in 1956, capable of transmitting 35 calls at the same time. My tie shows Peanuts® characters using1980s-style cell phones, a much later development!
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