cooperphone

With technology moving at such a fast clip, it's easy to forget there was an era before iPhones and Android devices. Crazy, right? Your ancient Razr isn't even the earliest known relic. We have to go all the way back to 1973—the same year Pink Floyd released The Dark Side of the Moon—when the Motorola DynaTAC crawled out from the primordial mobile sludge. That's 40 years ago.

Inspired by Captain Kirk's flip-top communicator from Star Trek, inventor Martin Cooper managed to make a phone call from the monstrous DynaTAC, a device that stood 10-inches tall and weighed 2.5 pounds—that's without any sort of touch screen or apps or camera. Can you imagine? Today, we are spoiled by incredible devices that keep us on the cusp of breaking news and allow us to document every little aspect of our lives through social media.

Do you remember what your first mobile phone was? Long, long ago, I briefly had a flip phone on Verizon, graduated to the Sidekick on T-Mobile and made the jump to the very first iPhone (unlocked on T-Mobile). It's amazing how quickly everything changes, and even more amazing that the first mobile phone call was successfully made on this day back in 1973.