The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison, who announced it in 1877. It recorded sound by making vibrations in a diaphragm cut a groove into tinfoil wrapped around a rotating cylinder, and then played back by tracing the groove. Edison's first successful recording was of himself reciting the nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb. Earlier, in 1857, the Frenchman Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville had made a device that traced sound waves on paper, but it could not play them back. Edison's design was improved by Alexander Graham Bell's laboratory with wax cylinders, and by Emile Berliner's flat-disc gramophone in 1887, which became the basis of the record industry.
Before and after
- May 1876Batak massacre
- from 30 June 1876 to 3 March 1878First Serbian–Ottoman War
- November 1876Schliemann finds the 'Mask of Agamemnon' at Mycenae
- 25 December 1876Birth of Mohammad Ali Jinnah
- 1877Invention of phonograph
- 1877Publication of Anna Karenina
- from 1877 to 1892Bone Wars
- 1877Launch of The Washington Post
- 1877Founding of Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.
More in Science & technology
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.