The First Song Ever Recorded

The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences by Greg Young

May 5, 201710:58Society & Culture

Imagine if we could hear the voices of Abraham Lincoln, Queen Victoria or Frederick Douglass? Believe it or not, somebody was making audio recordings as far back as the 1850s. This is the story of the first audio recordi...

Related Episodes

Continue listening to more episodes from The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences.

The First Apartment Building in America (A Stuyvesant Story)

Jan 3, 2018 - 25:21

Apartment living is something we take for granted today, the option for those who can't afford or don't d...

The Lost Highway: America's First Cross Country Road

Dec 21, 2017 - 34:21

In 1900, there were about 8,000 registered automobiles in the United States. They were a genuine novelty....

How Electric Light Changed Christmas Forever

Dec 7, 2017 - 28:51

That string of multi-colored Christmas lights wrapped around your tree (or your house) is far more influe...

The Plant Doctor: The Extraordinary George Washington Carver

Oct 6, 2017 - 31:30

How much do you know about George Washington Carver, the man born into slavery who became America's most...

The Real Housewives of Early America: The Story of the First American Cookbook

Sep 21, 2017 - 30:16

"Over the river and through the woods" into the history of early American cuisine. The first published Eu...

The Rebel: America's Founding Inventor

Aug 25, 2017 - 40:06

Benjamin Franklin was the most famous American in the world by the time of the Revolutionary War, known a...

Lightning Strikes: Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia Experiment

Aug 11, 2017 - 30:30

How much do you know about one of the most famous scientific experiments in American history? In 1752 Ben...

Franklin Gothic: The Invention of Benjamin Franklin

Jul 28, 2017 - 34:59

Benjamin Franklin did more in his first forty years than most people do in an entire lifetime. Had he not...