Who really invented the telephone and the radio?
Many schoolchildren learn that the Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell (1) _____ (invent) the telephone in 1876. But the real inventor (2) _____ (be) Antonio Meucci, a poor Italian American. He (3) _____ (share) a workshop with Bell in the 1860s, and (4) _____ (make) a talking telegraph for his wife who was ill in bed, so that she (5) _____ (can) call him when she (6) _____ (want) something. But Meucci never (7) _____ (take) his idea to the US Patent Office, because he was too poor to pay the $250 that he (8) _____ (need). So on February 14th 1876 Alexander Graham Bell (9) _____ (take) the invention to the Patent Office instead. Funny thing, just two hours later another inventor, Elisha Gray (10) _____ (arrive) with the same idea - too late!
At the time, nobody (11) _____ (believe) that the telephone was an important invention. Bell's father-in-law, also a scientist, (12) _____ (decribe) the invention as a "beautiful toy." And it was 2002 before the US Congress (13) _____ (decide) that Meucci was the true inventor of the telephone!
But everyone knows that the Italian Marconi (14) _____ (invent) the radio, right? Wrong. Actually, Guglielmo Marconni (15) _____ (steal) his great idea from Nikola Tesla, a Croatian scientist. Tesla (16) _____ (write) an article in 1893 and in it he (17) _____ (describe) his important new invention - the radio.
But just two years later, Marconi (18) _____ (take) the idea to the US Patent Office and soon (begin) to sell it. In 1909 he even (19) _____ (win) a Nobel Prize for his invention.
In 1943 Nikola Tesla (20) _____ (die) in New York, a poor man. That year, the US Congress (21) _____ (decide) that Nikola Tesla was the true father of the radio.
