From left, Uriah Painter, correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer; Edison assistant Charles Batchelor and Thomas Edison with the Edison phonograph in Mathew Brady?s photography studio in ...

This photo provided by the Museum of Innovation and Science in Schenectady, N.Y., shows Thomas Edison's 1878 tinfoil phonograph. Researchers have digitized what experts say is the oldest recording ...

That changed in 1877 when Thomas Edison unveiled his phonograph. ... “The music you want, whenever you want it,” as one phonograph ad boasted.

Thomas Edison invented the phonograph on August 12, 1877. It "will undoubtedly be liberally devoted to music," Edison predicted with stunning accuracy in 1878.

Cros mailed his paper to the French Academy of Science, where it was filed away and forgotten while Edison’s research went on. Edison, as it turned out, discovered the phonograph almost by accident.