The first iPhone was officially announced by Steve Jobs
(above) on January 9, 2007, during a keynote address at
the Macworld conference.
On this day in 2007, Apple released the first iPhone, revolutionizing
the mobile phone industry and transforming human communication
with its sleek design and pioneering touch interface that allowed
users to pinch, zoom and swipe.
Senator Rankin Fite (right) making the call.
The first 911 call was placed by Rep. Rankin Fite, the Speaker
of the Alabama House of Representatives, in the town of
Haleyville, Alabama on February 16th of the following year.
Nome, Alaska adopted the system a week later. Still, it would
years before the system was widespread and decades before
it was uniform.
It was only in 1973 that the White House issued an official
statement in favor of 911, and even that a suggestion rather
than a law or executive order.
By 1987, 50 percent of the nation was using the system.
On January 9, 2007, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the
iPhone—a touchscreen mobile phone with an iPod, camera
and Web-browsing capabilities, among other features—at
the Macworld convention in San Francisco.
Jobs called the iPhone a “revolutionary and magical product
that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone.”
When it went on sale in the United States six months later, on
June 29, amidst huge hype, thousands of customers lined up
at Apple stores across the country to be among the first to
purchase an iPhone.
The iPhone helped turned Apple, which Jobs (1955-2011) co-
founded with his friend Stephen Wozniak in California in 1976,
into one of the planet’s most valuable corporations.
The first 911 call was placed by Rep. Rankin Fite (right ) the Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, in the
town of Haleyville, AL. The phone used to make the first
U.S. 911 call is shown on display.
February 16, 1968 sees the first official "911" call placed in the
United States. Now taken for granted as first course of action
in the event of emergency by nearly all of the nation’s 327
million people, 911 is a relatively recent invention and was
still not standard across the United States for many years
after its adoption by Congress.
AT&T chose the number 911, which was simple, easy to
remember, dialed quickly and worked well with the phone
systems at the time.
