Back to the Past: A Phone Call Between New York and San Francisco (29/7/2020)

In today's installment of our regular Back to the Past series, we'll be looking at the first phone call between New York and San Francisco. In brief, however, we will recall, for example, the publication of Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring or the Apollo 15 flight.

Telephone call between New York and San Francisco (1914)

On July 29, 1914, the first call was made between New York and San Francisco on the newly completed transcontinental telephone line. The last construction work on the line took place just two days before the aforementioned call was made - on July 27. Commercial operation on the mentioned line did not start until January 25 of the following year. The reason for the six-month delay was AT&T's desire to tie the release of the service to the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair.

Gallery

Transcontinental call

Bell Laboratories old headquarters

Alexander Graham Bell

Other areas not only from the field of technology

• JRR Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) is published
• David Scott and James Irwin landing on the moon as part of the Apollo 15 space flight (1971)