Dr. Martin Cooper, one of the inventors of the first cell phone

NEW YORK (AP) — A cell phone was first used exactly 40 years ago.

On April 3, 1973, the first handheld portable phone was demonstrated
for reporters by Motorola executive Martin Cooper (pictured) on a New
York City street corner.

Cooper contacted Joel S. Engel, of Bell Labs, using a Motorola device
that looked like "a small, domesticated version of military walkie-talkies,"
according to an Associated Press report at the time.

The device weighed just under three pounds. The iPhone 5 weighs just
under 4 ounces. 

 
The Motorola DynaTAC and a current Samsung Galaxy S3.

The Communications Satellite Telstar was launched by NASA atop a 
Delta rocket on July 10, 1962 from Cape Canaveral. It successfully
relayed the first publicly available live transatlantic television signal
from space on July 23, at 3:00 p.m. EDT. That first public broadcast
featured CBS’s Walter Cronkite, NBC’s Chet Huntley in New York,
and the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby in Brussels. The first pictures were
the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.  

Samuel Morse transmitted the first message via telegraph in the United States sent 
from Washington to Baltimore, "What hath God Wrought!”, a Bible verse found in 
Numbers 23:23. According to the Library of Congress, the message was suggested 
by Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of one of Morse’s friends. By 1846, telegraph lines  
were erected, connecting major eastern and northern cities. 

Alexander Graham Bell’s patent for the telephone was issued on March 7, 1876,
by the U.S. Patent Office. Three days after receiving his patent. Bell succeeded
in getting his invention to work when he accidentally spilled some acid. He spoke
the famous sentence, “Mr. Watson…Come here…I want to see you”. His assistant Thomas Watson, listening at the receiving end of the device in an adjoining room,
heard the words from Bell clearly and rushed to his aide.

 
Thomas A. Watson

The master copy of Bell’s patent for the telephone