Celebrations Today – March 10

Holidays and observances

Celebrations Today – USA: March 10

National Blueberry Popover Day
National Mario Day
National Pack Your Lunch Day
National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
National Amerigo Vespucci Day
National Bang-Clang Day
National False Teeth Day
Joe Franklin Day
National Panic Day

Today in US History: March 10

Alexander Graham Bell

Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you.Alexander Graham Bell’s Experimental Notebook, March 10, 1876
Bell Family Papers

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell conducted a successful experiment with the telephone. This breakthrough, during which he uttered his famous directive to his assistant, Thomas Watson, is recorded in the March 10 entry of his Lab Notebook.

Bell’s Experimental Notebook, March 10, 1876.
Bell Family Papers

That same day, an ebullient Bell wrote his father of his “great success” and speculated that “the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water and gas — and friends converse with each other without leaving home.”

Born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Alexander Graham Bell was the son and grandson of authorities in elocution and the correction of speech. Educated to pursue a career in the same specialty, his knowledge of the nature of sound led him not only to teach the deaf, but also to invent the telephone.

Alexander Graham Bell at the opening of the long-distance line from New York to Chicago, 1892.
Bell Family Papers

Bell’s unceasing scientific curiosity led to invention of the photophone, to significant commercial improvements in Thomas Edison’s phonograph, and to development of his own flying machine just six years after the Wright Brothers launched their plane at Kitty Hawk. As President James Garfield lay dying of an assassin’s bullet in 1881, Bell hurriedly invented a metal detector in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the fatal slug.

In 1915, fifty-four years after telegraph lines connected America’s coasts, transcontinental telephone lines were completed. Invited to play a role in the formal dedication of the line in New York, Bell used a duplicate of his 1876 telephone to speak to his former assistant, Thomas Watson, in San Francisco. Echoing his famous words of March 10, 1876, Bell again commanded, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” Watson replied that it would take him a week to do so.

Alexander Graham Bell and Helen Keller, August 29, 1901.
Bell Family Papers

The Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, 1862-1939, contains correspondence, scientific notebooks, journals, blueprints, articles, and photographs documenting Bell’s invention of the telephone and his involvement in the first telephone company, his family life, his interest in the education of the deaf, and his aeronautical and other scientific research. Use the Timeline to learn more about the inventor or peruse some of the Collection Highlights. To dig deeper into the collection, browse the different series of papers or search on terms of special interest
In 1887, Alexander Graham Bell befriended seven-year-old Helen Keller. Deaf and blind from age nineteen months, Keller later described Bell as “the door through which I should pass from darkness into light.” Leonard C. Bruno of the Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress describes the relationship between Bell and Keller in his feature on Keller’s 1893 poem “Autumn.” Keller’s poem is included in the collection Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division’s First 100 Years.
Read Today in History features on inventors, including Elias Howe, Charles E. Minches, and Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre.
Samuel F. B. Morse Papers at the Library of Congress, 1793-1919 document Morse’s invention of the electromagnetic telegraph, and his participation in the development of telegraph systems in the United States and abroad. The Special Presentation, Collection Highlights, provides selected examples of Morse’s efforts to invent the telegraph and Morse Code.
Thomas Edison’s inventions are documented in Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies. An Improved Phonograph in the Special Presentation, The Life of Thomas Edison describes Edison’s reactions to the improvements made by Bell and his associates. For Edison’s work on the phonograph, see Edison’s Sound Recordings for Special Presentations on the Edison Cylinder Phonograph and the Edison disc phonograph.
Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry describes Berliner’s development of the microphone and the flat recording disc and gramophone player. Berliner’s work on the microphoneearned him a visit from Thomas Watson and subsequent employment by the Alexander Graham Bell Telephone Company.
The Wright Brothers experiments with flight are presented in The Orville and Wilber Wright Papers at the Library of Congress. Bell congratulated the Wright Brothers on their “magnificent success.”

Today in History – March 10-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia