On April 13, 1808 Antonio Meucci was born in Florence, the inventor of the telephone. I mentioned to him talking about Bell, the history that binds the two to the design of the phone.
Meucci began working as a stage technician at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, but after the revolutions of 1831 had to flee to Cuba, where he continued his work at the Teatro Tacon in Havana. In 1850, the theater caught fire and Meucci had to move the United States, where he opened a candle factory (where he also worked Garibaldi).
In 1854 he began working the phone, to be able to communicate between the office and home with his sick wife. It mandates that the artist Nestor Corradi friend to make him a sketch of his idea, which will be used as proof of paternity of the phone.
Meucci had already created something similar, at least conceptually, at the time of his work in theater with a system of pipes could communicate directly from the control room with the workers, giving all the orders of the case.
Unfortunately for him, the candle factory did not go as hoped and ultimately failed, forcing Meucci to live with friends, with little money in his pocket. Despite all continued to work on his phone and eventually deposited in 1871 a temporary patent, paying $ 10 a year. Having no available funds managed only to renew it until 1873.
At this point Bell enters the scene, even as this inventor was working on the phone independently. Bell, however, had enough money to present a final patent in 1876, a system that allowed him to officially be the inventor of the telephone in the eyes of the law, given that Meucci was unable to win the case against him for fatherhood.
A long there was a debate in favor of either, but in 2002 the U.S. Congress to recognize the paternity of Meucci telephone, putting an end to the whole affair.
