early 12c., one of the ecclesiastical princes who constitute the sacred college (short for cardinalis ecclesiae Romanae or episcopus cardinalis), from Latin cardinalis principal, chief, essential (see cardinal (adj.)). Ecclesiastical use began for the presbyters of the chief (cardinal) churches of Rome.
In 1889, the rotary telephone dial was invented by Almon B. Strowger , a Kansas City undertaker. The first dial exchange was installed at La Porte, Indiana, in 1892. In 1943, Philadelphia was the last major area to give up dual service.
Melvilleâs claim to fame, besides having a son who invented the telephone, was the invention of a phonetic alphabet, based on the position of the articulators during the production of different speech and non-speech (e.g. yawns) sounds. Bell named his notation system Visible Speech.