Profile America - Monday, March 9th. For many of us, trying to envision life without our various telephones would be like trying to live without indoor plumbing. The telephone is 133 years old tomorrow. That's when Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over a wire to his assistant in the next room, Bell said, "Mister Watson, come here, I want you." At the time the public was slow to see the usefulness of the new invention. Now, the public has an insatiable appetite for phones and use them in ways Bell could not have imagined. We make more than a billion local calls each day - that's about four for every man, woman and child. And eight-out-of-10 of us now carry cell phones to continue our chats while working, shopping, and even driving. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.
Sources: Chase's Calendar of Events, p. 165
Statistical Abstract, 2009, t.1110, 1112 (Figures computed by author)
Profile America is produced by the Public Information Office of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look under the "Newsroom" button).
