The Undertaker Who Developed Automatic Phone Dialing

Cool Weird Awesome with Brady Carlson

Today in 1892 a phone system that made automated calls - no switchboard operator - began operating in Laporte, Indiana. The first automatic dial network happened, as the story goes, because of a business dispute between two undertakers. Plus: today in 1882, the birthday of John Baxter Taylor, Jr, the first Black American to win an Olympic gold medal.

Almon B. Strowger: The undertaker who revolutionized telephone technology (Spark Museum of Electrical Invention)

First African American Olympic gold medalist was a Penn grad (University of Pennsylvania)

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