---
title: "Which came first, the telephone or television?"
description: "the telephone vs television: the telephone came first, by 49 years — 1876 against 1925. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/telephone-vs-television/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the telephone or television?

**Which came first, the telephone or television?: the telephone**

1876 — 49 years before television

the telephone came first, by 49 years. Bell was granted US patent 174,465.

## Side by side

|  | the telephone | television |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1876 | 1925 |
| Date | 1876-03-07 | 1925-10-02 |
| Category | invention | invention |
| What happened | Bell was granted US patent 174,465. | Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image. |

## the telephone

Bell's patent was granted on 7 March 1876 and he made the famous call to Watson three days later. Elisha Gray filed a caveat for a similar device on the same day in February that Bell filed his application, and the priority dispute has never entirely gone away. Antonio Meucci had demonstrated a working voice telegraph in New York in 1860 but could not afford to renew his caveat.

## television

John Logie Baird transmitted a recognisable moving image of a ventriloquist's dummy in October 1925 using a mechanical spinning-disc system. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated fully electronic television in 1927, and it was that approach, not Baird's, that every subsequent television used. Regular public broadcasting began in 1936, which means television is younger than the talking film and older than the ballpoint pen.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the telephone or television?

the telephone, by 49 years — 1876 against 1925.

### When did the telephone start?

1876. Bell was granted US patent 174,465.

### When did television start?

1925. Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image.

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## Sources

- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)