ANTONIO MEUCCI, THE TRUE INVENTOR OF THE TELEPHONE...

Antonio Meucci was born in Florence, Italy in 1808, and studied mechanical engineering and design in Florence at the Academy of Fine Arts. He moved to Cuba in the 1830s. He was experimenting with methods of treating illness with electric shocks when he made the discovery that sounds could travel through copper wire. In 1850 he moved to the U.S.A to continue research into this discovery.

Some years later, Meucci's wife Ester became paralysed, and he made a communication system between her bedroom and his workshop nearby. In 1860, he conducted a public demonstration of this system, which he called 'teletrofono'. He continued to refine his system.

Meucci could not afford the expensive $250 fee to take out a patent on his invention, and instead filed a one year notice of impending (meaning coming soon) patent in 1871. However, a year later he could not afford to renew it.

He sent a model and technical specifications to the Western Union telegraph company, but could not manage to get an appointment to meet the senior executives of the company.

Two years later, Alexander Graham Bell, who shared a laboratory with Meucci, paid for a patent for a telephone, and made a deal with Western Union telegraph company that made him a lot of money.

Antonio Meucci sued Bell. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, and fraud charges were started against Bell. In 1889, just when it looked like Meucci may win his case, he died, and the court case stopped. Alexander Graham Bell has been known as the inventor of the telephone ever since.

However in 2002, 113 years after Meucci's death, the American Congress recognised officially that it was Meucci and not Bell who invented the telephone.