Whose invention is the telephone?

Alexander Graham Bell is credited with inventing the telephone, receiving US Patent 174,465 on March 7, 1876. However, the story is famously controversial: Elisha Gray filed a patent caveat for a similar device on the same day, reportedly just hours after Bell. Antonio Meucci, an Italian inventor, had demonstrated a "talking telegraph" as early as 1860 but could not afford to maintain his patent filing. In 2002, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution recognizing Meucci's contributions. Bell made the first successful telephone call on March 10, 1876, saying: "Mr. Watson, come here — I want to see you." The telephone transformed human communication forever. Bell went on to found the Bell Telephone Company in 1877, which eventually became AT&T — one of the world's largest companies.