March 10 · This Day in America
In a Boston attic workshop, Alexander Graham Bell spills acid on his trousers and, without thinking, calls for help — into a machine. In the next room, down a wire, Thomas Watson hears it. Clear as anything: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." Watson does not walk. He runs. He bursts in shouting that he heard it, he heard the words. They had been chasing this for months, two young men and a tangle of wire, and now a human voice has traveled through metal and arrived intact on the other side. The distance was a few rooms. The implication was the whole world. Every call you have ever made, every voice you have ever heard that was not in the room with you, begins with a man calling for help and another man running toward it.
Source: www.si.edu
Also on this day · 1913
She had been born into slavery, escaped it, and then gone back into the South again and again to lead others out — never losing a single passenger. She scouted for the Union Army. She fought for women's votes. On this day, very old and finally at rest in Auburn, New York, she dies in a home she helped build for the elderly poor. Near the end she quoted the Gospel of John to those in the room: "I go away to prepare a place for you."
Source: www.nps.gov