1847
March 3 Alexander Bell is born to Alexander Melville and Eliza Symonds Bell in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the second of three sons; his siblings are Melville (b. 1845) and Edward (b. 1848).1858
Bell adopts the name Graham out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a family friend, and becomes known as Alexander Graham Bell.1862
October Alexander Graham Bell arrives in London to spend a year with his grandfather, Alexander Bell.1863
August Bell begins teaching music and elocution at Weston House Academy in Elgin, Scotland, and receives instruction in Latin and Greek for a year.1864
April Alexander Melville Bell develops Visible Speech, a kind of universal alphabet that reduces all sounds made by the human voice into a series of symbols. Visible Speech ChartFall Alexander Graham Bell attends the University of Edinburgh.
1865-66
Bell returns to Elgin to teach and experiments with vowel pitches and tuning forks.1866-67
Bell teaches at Somersetshire College in Bath.1867
May 17 Younger brother Edward Bell dies of tuberculosis at the age of 19.Summer Alexander Melville Bell publishes his definitive work on Visible Speech, Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics.
1868
May 21 Alexander Graham Bell begins teaching speech to the deaf at Susanna Hull's school for deaf children in London.Bell attends University College in London.
