On any given day, try to avoid recorded sound and, well, good luck. Music, voice messages, the news, alerts at the Metro station — it all makes silence elusive. But less than 150 years ago, there was ...

Q: What’s cylindrical, made of wax, and part of one of history’s great showdowns? A: These records in the museum collection with audio recorded 130 years ago. Three wax cylinders recorded in 1889 from ...

In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, the first machine that could record sound and play it back. On the first audio recording Edison recited: “Mary had a little lamb. Its fleece was white ...

Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park whose genius ushered in a new era of light and sound for humankind, invented the phonograph at his New Jersey laboratory on this day in history, Aug. 12, ...