Douglas R.
Google
If one "controls" the present (i.e., has $$$'s from AT&T stock), one can re-narrate the past. In reality, many folks were working on tele-audio and A.G.B. got to the patent office, with the right documentation, first before Elisha Grey. Assisted by hundreds of patent attorneys, Bell Telephone became a business and then became wildly profitable due to Theodore Vail and many "captains of industry" that captured the profits by creating a (natural?) monopoly protected by government edict. Yes, lots of benefits for human-kind, but it could have easily happened a different way. In my opinion, that is the much more interesting history that wont be told here.