On This Day: January 14

1878 - The Telephone is demonstrated before Queen Victoria.

Bell's early telephone's

     In 1878, Alexander Graham Bell exhibited the operations of a telephone to Queen Victoria at Osborne House, her Christmas holiday home on the Isle of Wight. The Queen herself took the 30 year old Scotsman's invention, and spoke to the Keeper of the Privy Purse (the financial manager for the monarchy), Sir Thomas Biddulph and his wife Mary, who were located elsewhere on the island. During the same conversation, a couple of songs were played over the phone. Other experiments were conducted from Southampton, Cowes, and London, with each city playing some music over the new device to the Queen at Osbone, including the National Anthem.

     Queen Victoria later wrote in her diary that "the whole process [was] most extraordinary", and later expressed her desire to purchase a set of telephones.

1882 - Death of Prince Eddy, the King that never was.

If this man had become King, we never would have had Elizabeth II or the House of Windsor.

 
     In 1892, Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, Duke of Clarence and Avondale died of influenza at Sandringham House in Norfolk, England, UK during the midst of an international pandemic. He was aged 28. Known as Eddy amongst his family, he was the eldest son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra of Denmark (the future Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). Prince Eddy served in the Royal Navy as well as the British Army, and was the second in line to throne, but his premature death meant that he was outlived by his father and grandmother, Queen Victoria. It also meant that that his younger brother Prince George moved up the line of succession, and in the following year he married Eddy's fiance, Princess Mary of Teck. They eventually became King George V and Queen Mary.  

     To this day, rumors and conspiracy theories have suggested that Prince Eddy was Jack the Ripper, but such claims have been dismissed since Eddy could not have been in London during the time of the murder spree.


Photo Credit: Carl Malamud via Flickr cc