Industrial AgeTechnology Telephone 1876Turning point Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone. Voice can travel over wires. ▲ MattersSaveShareTrace roots Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → First fired clay figures → First pottery → Copper smelting → Bronze Age begins → Shang dynasty → Zhou dynasty and the Mandate of Heaven → Spring and Autumn period → Legalism (Shang Yang) → Qin unifies China → Han dynasty → Magnetic compass for navigation → Gilbert's On the Magnet → Leyden jar → Franklin's kite experiment → Electric battery → Electromagnetism → Morse code → Telegraph → Telephone Community notesLoading notes… Learn more ranked by votesDocumentbritannica.comAlexander Graham Bell (Britannica) ↗Editor's pickBookCharlotte GrayReluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention ↗Editor's pickVideoSearch on YouTubeAlexander Graham Bell telephone history ↗Editor's pick