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Alexander Graham Bell was born on 3 March 1847. And, according to Wikipedia,

Patent Number 174,465 was issued to Bell on 7 March 1876 by the U.S. Patent Office which covered “the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically… by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound.”

That apparatus, of course, is the telephone, but his claim as inventor [despite what I was taught in every history class I ever took] is not without controversy. Regardless of who we blame, the telephone lets us reach out and nag someone at globe-spanning distances, added “drunk-dialing” to the lexicon, and lead eventually to songs like these.

• Telephone Line by Electric Light Orchestra
• Operator by Jim Croce
• Memphis by Johnny Rivers

The song titles link to YouTube videos and the artist names link to their official web sites.