Calling Agent 99. Max had a phone in his shoe. You'll have one under your skin...

Back in the '70s, telecommunications were the new frontier for tech companies. This is how one executive made the call that cellphones would change human life forever.

Who is he? Martin Cooper - aka the father of the cellphone, and former head of Motorola's communications systems division - and the first person to ever make a call from a cellphone.

What's the big deal? In some abstract way, we can probably connect that fateful call of yesteryear with our crippling phone addictions of today. Cooper had a vision for communication, and pushed for the cellphone while competitors placed their bets elsewhere. 

 

In fact, the push for a mobile phone was one bred from urgency. At the time, Motorola's competitor, Bell Labs, was focusing its efforts on the car phone. That concept didn't fly with Cooper. 

He felt that "a cellphone ought to be an extension of a person, it ought to be with a person all the time." 

So in 1972, he set out to create a mobile phone that could fit in your pocket. While the whole pocket thing was subjective (they called them brick phones for a reason!) by the next year, they had a functioning cellphone system. 

 

On April 3, 1973, Cooper made the first call of many, and dialed up his counterpart at Motorola's competitor, Bell Labs.