The First Telephone Call

March 10, 1876 - What were the first words ever spoken on the telephone? 

They were spoken by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, when he made the first call on March 10, 1876, to his assistant, Thomas Watson: "Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you."

Bell's first telephone call was so famous, he repeated the phrase in 1915 in the formal opening of the completed transcontinental telephone lines connecting America's East and West coasts. Picking up the phone in New York, Mr. Bell said, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." But this time Watson replied that it would take him a week; he was on the other end of the line in San Francisco.

pictured: Bell on the telephone in New York calling Chicago in 1892.