<Li> 1860: Johann Philipp Reis of Germany demonstrates a make - and - break transmitter after the design of Bourseul and a knitting - needle receiver . Witnesses said they heard human voices being transmitted . </Li> <Li> 1861: Johann Philipp Reis transfers voice electrically over a distance of 340 feet with his Reis telephone . To prove that speech can be recognized successfully at the receiving end, he uses the phrase "The horse does not eat cucumber salad" as an example because this phrase is hard to understand acoustically in German . </Li> <Li> 1864: In an attempt to give his musical automaton a voice, Innocenzo Manzetti invents the' speaking telegraph' . He shows no interest in patenting his device, but it is reported in newspapers . </Li> <Li> 1865: Meucci reads of Manzetti's invention and writes to the editors of two newspapers claiming priority and quoting his first experiment in 1849 . He writes "I do not wish to deny Mr. Manzetti his invention, I only wish to observe that two thoughts could be found to contain the same discovery, and that by uniting the two ideas one can more easily reach the certainty about a thing this important ." </Li>

The first public demonstration of the telephone was in which city