Today in Tech History – January 25, 2018

1881 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company in agreement with the Anglo-Indian Telephone Company Ltd. The company was licensed to sell telephones in Greece, Turkey, South Africa, India, Japan, China and several other Asian countries.

http://edison.rutgers.edu/list.htm

1915 – AT&T inaugurated transcontinental telephone service with a call made between New York City and San Francisco, CA The line had been completed the previous summer too early for the Panama Pacific Exposition, where it was introduced.

https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4405635/1st-transcontinental-phone-call-made–January-25–1915

1921 – A play called Rossum’s Universal Robots (R.U.R.) by Karel Capek debuted at the National Theater in Prague. It was the first appearance of the word robot. Spoiler alert, the robots end up killing all the humans but one.

http://io9.com/5260195/where-do-robots-come-from

1979 – Robert Williams was killed on the job in a Flat Rock, Michigan, casting plant, becoming the first recorded human death by robot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jan/25/robot-murder-anniversary

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.