The telephone was invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, a Scotsman who became a US citizen. The word 'telephone' had been (1)......... existence since the 1830s and had been (2)..........to a number of inventions designed to produce sound. Bell had become interested in the possibility of long-distance speech through his work with the deaf. He was twenty-eight and his assistant, Thomas Watson, was (3)..........twenty-one when they (4)........their great success on 10th March 1876. Despite their long and close association, Bell's first communication by telephone was not 'Tom, come here, I want you'. (5)........ 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want you'. (6).......... with excitement, Bell and Watson demonstrated their invention to a US telegram company. The company wrote to Bell, saying that his invention was interesting. However, after (7).........it careful consideration, they had (8)..........to the conclusion that it had 'no future'. Fortunately for Bell, others could see the possibilities. Within four years of its invention, the US had 60,000 telephones. In the next twenty years that (9)........increased to over 6 million.
Today, ninety-three per cent of US homes have a telephone, a level of phone ownership no other nation comes near to equalling. Each US household makes or receives (10)......average 3,516 calls per year, an astonishing statistic.