10 March - Saturday
Archives Day in Russia
1564 The first Russian printed book "The Apostle" was published in Moscow
1710 The first printed textbook on geography in Russian is published
1889 Elmon Strouger patented the first automatic telephone exchange
1910 Slavery forbidden in China
An American businessman from the city of Kansas City, Missouri, Elmon Brown Strowger, on March 10, 1889, patented an automatic telephone exchange, which earned him the title of "the father of all ATS." The reason that prompted him to create his invention is quite amusing and quite worthy of the following epigraph: "If the philosopher could become a mortician, then why should not the undertaker become a critic?".
Strougeer was ... an undertaker. And his business in the city of Kansas City flourished, but exactly as long as the wife of one of the main competitors did not get a telephone operator to switch the local station. The woman worked for glory. Since her employment, Strouger's business has fallen into decay. And it is not surprising, because every client who needs funeral services, the efforts of the lady passed the number of the unlucky Strouger, getting straight to the calculating wife of the telephone operator.
But Almon Strouger did not drop his hands, and, saving his own business, he became the inventor of a decade-step finder, eliminating the need to use an operator to establish a connection with a specific subscriber. ATS Strougera, which came into force in 1892, was known as a "phone without a young lady and curses."
By the way, until recently, a significant part of the citywide telephone network network in the major cities of our country were automatic telephone services of a ten-step type, today they are almost gone - they are replaced by digital equipment.