document_title: The Sims 2

question_text: the sims 2 ultimate collection what does it include

text: The Sims 2

text: Gameplay[edit]

text: From the neighborhood view, the player selects one lot to play, as in The Sims.[9] There are both residential and community lots, but Sims can only live in residential lots. Sims can travel to Community lots in order to purchase things like clothing and magazines, and to interact with NPCs and townies.

text: The player can choose between playing a pre-made inhabited lot, moving a household into an unoccupied pre-built lot, or constructing a building on an empty lot. One novelty from The Sims is foundations.

text: The player switches among the "live" mode (default) to control Sims, the "buy" mode to add, move or delete furniture, or the "build" mode to rebuild the house. Buy and build mode cannot be accessed when on a community lot, but can be opened by using the neighborhood view. It is also possible to import neighborhood terrains from SimCity 4.[10]

text: The game contains some time-bound social challenges that provide a reward if successful. Sims can throw parties to gain aspiration points or invite the headmaster over for dinner in order to enroll their children in private school.[9] Some expansion packs have new mini-games, like running a Greek house in University or dating in Nightlife. In Nightlife, each date is a challenge to keep both Sims as happy as possible while accumulating aspiration points. Various other expansion packs introduce supernatural characters which Sims can be turned into, such as Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, Plantsims, and Witches.

text: Sims[edit]

text: The main part of the game is to lead a Sim from the start of life to death. A Sim will be born when a female Sim and a male Sim try for a baby. The mother will spend 3 Sim days (each day lasts 24 minutes though time can be sped-up) pregnant before giving birth to a baby.[9] During Pregnancy, the belly does not expand gradually. Instead, every day, it "pops" to a bigger size. Players can name the new Sim upon birth. The baby's appearance and personality will be based on the genetics of its parents (though the baby's appearance is hidden until it becomes a toddler). Babies can also be adopted by calling the social worker on the phone, even by single parents or same-gender couples. The baby will change into a toddler in 3 days, and 4 more days for the toddler to change into a child. After 8 days, the child grows into a teenager, and will live 15 days before changing into an adult. After 29 days, the Sim will become an elder. An elder will eventually die; the length of this final stage depends on the aspiration bar when they become an elder.

text: Babies, toddlers, children, teens, and adults can be advanced to their next life stage at any time during the 24 Sim hours before they will grow up automatically. For babies, this requires using the birthday cake. Toddlers, children, teens, and adults can use the "Grow Up" self-interaction. If the University expansion pack is installed, teens have the option to go to college, where they will be young adults for approximately 24 days. Aging can be disabled via cheats.

text: Players will need to build up talent badges, skills and relationships with other people, so that they can be successful in their career.[11] A player will also need to make sure a Sim is happy and well by fulfilling wants (including lifetime wants, avoiding fears, and fulfilling motives).

text: Pregnancy, toddlers, teens, and elders are new stages of life. Young adult is a unique age added with the University expansion. Teen Sims will become young adults once they are moved to a University, and will be adults once they leave campus, regardless of the reason.

text: Create-a-Sim[edit]

text: In The Sims 2, Create a Family is entered by clicking the "Families" button in the lower left-hand corner of the neighborhood view, then clicking the large "Create New Family" button. Clicking the button labeled "Create A Sim" will expand a tab which has the "Create a Sim" and "Make a Child" icons. "Make a Child" will be grayed out unless the family contains an adult male and adult female. Clicking the "Create a Sim" icon will generate a random adult Sim, who may be male or female which can be edited by the player.

text: As opposed to The Sims, any age besides baby or young adult (which must be made in the University Create a Student) may be created. Instead of having to choose from already finished faces which include hair, it is now possible to alter the facial structure (e.g. widening the nose, thinning the lips, elongating the chin, etc.) and choose any hairstyle to go with it. Different eye colors and an additional skin tone is available for the Sims as well. If Sims are older than a child, their aspiration and turn-ons/offs (Nightlife or later) may be determined. As in The Sims, there are five personality traits, and 25 personality points which can be assigned to those traits.[12] However, in The Sims 2, all personality points must be assigned. Additionally, there are twelve pre-set personalities, one for each of the zodiac signs. A zodiac sign will be set which matches the personality the player has selected for the Sim.

text: The Sims 2 also comes with The Sims 2 Body Shop, which enables users to create genetics, makeups, accessories, clothes, and Sims, with the help of third-party tools, such as MS Paint, Paint.NET, Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, Wings 3D, and SimPE. The Sims 2 Body Shop is normally installed in C:\Program Files\EA Games\[The Sims 2 or the most recent installed expansion pack or stuff pack here]\CSBin.

text: Social interactions[edit]

text: There are several new social interactions introduced in The Sims 2. These new social interactions can create memories and can be related to certain age groups. Social interactions can come up in the Wants and Fears panel and can be dependent on the Sim's personality and aspiration. Sims with certain personalities may not want to complete certain social interactions.

text: Careers[edit]

text: There are careers that come with the game that require skills and a certain number of friends in order for promotion.[16] Success in these careers unlocks career rewards and higher salaries plus bonuses. Sims also receive chance cards. Correct answers to these chance cards creates rewards for Sims while incorrect answers could cause a Sim to lose its job. Nightlife and Apartment Life allow Sims to gain promotions through social interactions with other Sims.[17]

text: Comparison to The Sims[edit]

text: Graphically, The Sims 2 is more detailed than The Sims and lets players view its world in full 3D. This is a change from earlier Sim games, such as SimCity 2000, which used dimetric projection and fixed resolutions, as the camera was in The Sims. In The Sims, Sims are 3D meshes, but The Sims 2 introduces far more detail in mesh quality, texture quality, and animation capability. A Sim's facial features are customizable and unique, and Sims can smile, frown, and blink. The player can adjust a Sim's features in the in-game Create-a-Sim tool; for example, noses can be made to be very large or very small. Texturing is achieved through use of raster images, though it appears more lifelike.

text: The Sims 2 characters pass through seven life stages — babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, young adults (only with University), adults, and elders — with eventual death of old age, while babies in The Sims only become children before ceasing to continue aging. The aspiration system (described above) is also new to The Sims 2. Sims can become pregnant and produce babies that take on genetic characteristics of their parents, such as eye color, hair color, facial structure, and personality traits as opposed to Sims, in which the baby would take on random appearance and personality. Genetics play a major role in the game, and as such, dominant and recessive genes play a larger role than they did in the original game. A player can also aspire to have a Sim abducted by aliens. Males then have the chance to become impregnated and produce after three Sim days a half-alien child.

text: Some of the other additions to gameplay are career rewards, a week cycle, the cleaning skill (which was a hidden skill in The Sims), a variety of meals (depending on time of day), exercise clothing, body shape affected by diet and exercise, and houses built on foundations.

text: Development[edit]

text: EA Games announced on May 5, 2003 that the Maxis studio had begun development on The Sims 2.[18] The game was first shown at E3 in Los Angeles, California on May 13, 2004.[18] Will Wright admits that while most of the content of The Sims 2 are original ideas, inspiration for its own expansions and constituents spawned from the successes of the first game. The community interest in the antecedent The Sims: Unleashed and The Sims: Hot Date expansions ensured the creation of The Sims 2: Pets and The Sims 2: Nightlife expansions, respectively.[19]

text: After development concluded, designers from Maxis regarded The Sims 2 as very capricious during creation. Bugs would appear, and Sims would be "tweaked", or have anomalies not present in a previous run.[20] A teaser trailer was provided on the Makin' Magic CD but was later uploaded to websites all over the Internet.

text: On December 15, 2012, Electronic Arts announced that the official website would be shut down on January 14, 2013. It is now no longer possible to download content from the official site, create exchanges, or participate in the official forum communities.[21]

text: On July 16, 2014, Electronic Arts announced the end of support for The Sims 2. As a response The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection was released at the same time as a limited time offer. The game became available for free download from Origin exclusively following an announcement by EA that they would no longer be supporting the Game.[22] This offer ended at 10:00 PDT July 31, 2014.[23][24][25] EA stated that they were planning on releasing the compilation as a retail release. However, as of now, no further information has since been released or confirmed on its planned retail release date, and the game has since been removed entirely from Origin as of the end of 2017.

text: On August 7, 2014, Aspyr Media released The Sims 2: Super Collection as digital download exclusively available at the Mac App Store; the game was updated for OS X Mavericks, 4K and Retina. This compilation only includes the first six expansion packs and the first three stuff packs. Aspyr stated they were unable to include the remaining packs for the game due to licensing conflicts with EA. Like the Ultimate Collection, no new updates on when the remaining packs will be released separately or as a single add-on to the Super Collection have emerged.

text: Music[edit]

text: The game features music performed by Paramore, Ryan Ferguson, Trivium, Chiodos and more recording artists (all songs recorded in the Sims language "Simlish").[26] The Humble Brothers contributed heavily to the game.

text: Reception and legacy[edit]

text:
Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator
Score

GameRankings
91%[16]

Metacritic
90[7]

Review scores

Publication
Score

1UP.com
A[12]

Eurogamer
8 of 10[27]

GamePro
[28]

Game Revolution
B+[11]

GameSpot
8.9 of 10 [29]

GameSpy
[9]

GamesRadar+
9 of 10[30]

GameZone
9.4 of 10[31]

IGN
9.4 of 10[32]

PC Gamer (US)
85% [7]

Awards

Publication
Award

Blimp Award (UK Kids' Choice Awards)
Best Video Game

Apple Design Award (Apple Design Awards)
Best Mac OS X Game

text: The Sims 2 had a successful E3.[33][34] The game also received the Editor's Choice Award from IGN and GameSpy upon final review of the finished product.[35][36] From 71 online reviews, the average score was 90 out of 100. Seven of those sources awarded the game a 100 out of 100 score.[37] X-Play gave the game a 4/5. Computer Gaming World awarded the game as their 2004 "Strategy Game of the Year (General)", beating out RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, The Political Machine, and Silent Storm.[38] However, critics noted some serious bugs in the game.[citation needed]

text: The Sims creator, Will Wright, was recognized by being nominated at the Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards for Visionary and Game Developer.[39] The game was also nominated for two international awards in 2005.[40][41] The Mac version of the game won an Apple Design Award in 2006.[42] Computer Games Magazine named The Sims 2 the sixth-best computer game of 2004. The editors wrote that it is "more of a game and less of a dollhouse [than The Sims], but it remains a celebration of the beauty of the mundane." It also won the magazine's "Best Voice Acting" award.[43]

text: The Sims 2 was an instant commercial success, selling a then-record one million copies in its first ten days.[4] The game sold 4.5 million units within its first year, and 7 million by October 2006.[44][45] It received a "Double Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[46] indicating sales of at least 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[47]

text: As of March 2012, The Sims 2 had sold 13 million across all platforms and six million on PC, making it one of the best-selling PC games of all-time.[8] During April 2008, The Sims 2 website announced that 100 million copies of The Sims series had been sold.[5]

text: Controversy[edit]

text: The Sims 2's malleable content and open-ended customization have led to controversy on the subject of pay sites. Custom content is distributed through independent websites, some of which charge for downloading materials. Charging money for custom content is a violation of the game's EULA,[48] which prohibits the commercial use of Electronic Art's intellectual property.

text: On July 22, 2005, former Florida attorney Jack Thompson alleged that Electronic Arts and The Sims 2 promoted nudity through the use of a mod or a cheat code. The claim was made that pubic hair, labia and other genital details were visible once the "blur" (the pixelation that occurs when a Sim is using the toilet or is naked in the game) was removed.[49] Electronic Arts executive Jeff Brown said in an interview with GameSpot:[50]

text: This is nonsense. We've reviewed 100 percent of the content. There is no content inappropriate for a teen audience. Players never see a nude Sim. If someone with an extreme amount of expertise and time were to remove the pixels, they would see that the sims have no genitals. They appear like Ken and Barbie.

text: Prior to Thompson's statement, there was an enterable code which allowed to modify the size (including to zero) of pixelation accessible from the console menu. Shortly after the statement, subsequent patches and expansion packs removed the "intProp censorGridSize" code; this code had been left over from the beta testing stage of the original game and had not been intended for a public audience.

text: Editions, compilations, and add-ons[edit]

text: Many Sims games have been ported to OS X by Aspyr. The Sims 2 has also been released for a number of video game consoles including the PlayStation 2, the Xbox, Nintendo DS and the Nintendo GameCube.

text: OS X version[edit]

text: OS X ports of the base game, six expansion packs, and three Stuff Packs have been released by Aspyr Media. The port for the base game was announced on October 19, 2004.[51] The Sims 2 had reached beta status on March 1, 2005, and was released on June 17 the same year.[52] It was, at release, compatible with Mac OS X Panther and above. The Sims 2 Bodyshop was also available for OS X. The game is now available for purchase with all ported expansions and Stuff Packs on the Mac App Store for OS X Mavericks.

text: Console versions[edit]

text: The console versions of The Sims 2 featured local splitscreen multiplayer, a story mode and an option to control game characters directly, as opposed to queuing options as is traditional Sims gameplay.

text: Handheld versions[edit]

text: Game Boy Advance version[edit]

text: The Game Boy Advance version of The Sims 2 takes place in Strangetown, and shares a similar GUI to its predecessors (The Sims Bustin' Out and The Urbz). Players are guided through a goal-oriented game based on the reality television concept in which partitions of the game are divided into "episodes". Characters from the previous handheld sims games also appeared.

text: Nintendo DS version[edit]

text: The Nintendo DS version of The Sims 2 (commonly referred to as "The Sims 2 Hotel") begins with the player's car breaking down in Strangetown. Upon arriving, an anonymous donor grants the player the deed to a hotel which can be operated and customized at the player's discretion. The player's job is to bring life back into Strangetown by encouraging people to come to the hotel, which players can do by upgrading it and making the guests happy. There are several ways in which a player can make Strangetown a nicer place, but is up to the player to find them. Unlike most games in the Sim series, this one takes place in real-time.

text: PlayStation Portable version[edit]

text: The PlayStation Portable version of the game is played in first person. There is more of a solid storyline the player is required to navigate through in order to unlock most of the things available in the other versions. The option to build your own home is replaced by a pre-built home where you can customize the furniture and decor. Conversation is carried out via a mini-game function. The player'a character does not age, nor are they able to marry or have children. Relationships are mainly used for the point of solving goals, though a close friend may "move in" with the player after progressing in the game.

text: The game begins with the player's character driving through the Strangetown desert, presumably 'Road to Nowhere' in their car, when suddenly a flying green diamond (Also known as the Plumbob, the marker and logo of the Sims game) flies towards the player and causes them to lose control of, and damage, their car. Fortunately, the player finds a gas station. The player takes their car into the garage. At that point the player takes control. The player is introduced to a vehicle mechanic named Oscar who, after a brief tutorial in teaching the player how to talk to NPC Sims, informs the player their car will only take a short while to fix.

text: The player is then free to roam around the gas station, and after being introduced to some more NPCs, including Bella Goth, who claims to be abducted by aliens, completing tasks and being taught the basic objective of the game which is 'Secret Hunting' for the store clerk. The player then exits the shop only to find the garage around the back has completely disappeared along with Oscar and their car, with only the foundation of the garage remaining. The only thing left from the disappearance is a cell phone, which the player answers and a man named Doctor Dominic Newlow offers the player a job, requiring him or her to get a ride into town and find a place to stay.

text: The player informs Police Deputy Duncan about the situation who replies that he can do nothing about it and suggests the player find a place to stay. After having bought Bella's house for pocket change and getting donuts for Deputy Duncan (which happen to have been found in the trash), the player finally gets a lift into Strangetown's Paradise Place, only to find more tasks and mysteries.

text: Expansion packs[edit]

text: The Sims 2 expansion packs provide additional game features and items. Eight expansion packs were released throughout the game's lifecycle. The Sims 2: Apartment Life is the final expansion pack for The Sims 2.

text:
Name
Release date
Major Additions
Neighborhoods
New NPCs
New Lifestate/Creature
New Careers

University
Windows:

NA: March 1, 2005

EU: March 2, 2005

Mac OS X:
December 12, 2005
Universities, Young Adult age group, Influence system
Campus:
La Fiesta Tech,
Sim State University,
Académie Le Tour
Barista, Bartender,
Cafeteria Worker,
Cheerleader,
Coach, Evil Mascot, Mascot,
Professors, Streaker
Zombies (Also in FreeTime and Apartment Life)
Natural Scientist,
Paranormal,
Show Business,
Artist

Nightlife
Windows:

NA: September 13, 2005

EU: September 13, 2005

Mac OS X:
March 27, 2006
Dates, Groups system, Outings, Pleasure and Grilled Cheese aspiration, New relationship states, ownable cars, Attraction system
Downtown:
Downtown
Gypsy Matchmaker,
Waiter, Chef,
Bartender, DJ,
Mrs. Crumplebottom,
Vampires (Counts/Countesses)
Vampires
None

Open for Business
Windows:

NA: March 2, 2006

EU: March 2, 2006

Mac OS X:
September 4, 2006
Businesses, talent badges
Shopping District:
Bluewater Village
Reporters,
Barbers
Servos (Robots)
Shop Employees

Pets
Windows:

NA: October 17, 2006

EU: October 20, 2006

Mac OS X:
November 6, 2006
Ownable Pets
None
Animal Control Officers,
Obedience Trainer,
Wolves, Skunks
Werewolves
Pet careers:
Security,
Showbiz,
Service

Seasons
Windows:

NA: March 1, 2007

EU: March 2, 2007

Mac OS X:
June 11, 2007
Weather system, Seasons, fishing, new talent badges,
gardening
Main:
Riverblossom Hills
Garden Club Members,
Penguins
PlantSims
Adventurer,
Education,
Gamer,
Journalism,
Law, Music

Bon Voyage
Windows:

NA: September 4, 2007

EU: September 7, 2007

Mac OS X:
December 17, 2007
Vacations in different cultural areas
Vacation:
Twikkii Island,
Three Lakes,
Takemizu Village
Fire Dancers,
Hotel Maids,
Bellboys, Masseurs,
Wise Old Man,
Pirate, Tour Guides,
Unsavory charlatan,
Witch Doctor, Ninjas
Bigfoot
None

FreeTime
Windows:

NA: February 26, 2008

EU: February 22, 2008

Hobby system, lifetime aspiration system, new talent badges.
Main:
Desiderata Valley

Secret:
Hobby
Hobby Members,
Rod Humble,
Hobby Leaders,
Food Judge,
Genie
Genie (Only NPC)
Oceanography,
Intelligence,
Entertainment,
Dance,
Architecture

Apartment Life
Windows:

NA: August 27, 2008

EU: August 29, 2008

Rentable apartments, reputation system, witchcraft system
Main:
Belladonna Cove[53]

Secret:
The Magical World
Butler, Landlord,
Roomies,
Breakdancers,
Street Performers,
Social Group Sims,
High Witch of Light/Darkness,
Spectral assistant (played by cats), Human statues[53]
Witches, Warlocks
None

text: Stuff packs[edit]

text: Stuff packs are add-ons that intend to add only new items (usually in the amount of 60) to the base game. However, some releases include certain gameplay elements introduced in previous expansion packs. There are ten total stuff packs. However, The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack served as the pilot release for this line of products, which were called "booster packs". After the success of the pilot release, EA named the releases "stuff packs" and launched the line with The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff. The Sims 2: Mansion & Garden Stuff is the final stuff pack for The Sims 2.

text:
Name
Release date
Includes

Holiday Party Pack
Windows:

NA: November 17, 2005

Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year themed stuff, plus new NPCs: Santa Claus, Father Time, and Baby New Year

Family Fun Stuff
Windows:

NA: April 13, 2006

Mac OS X:
April 30, 2007
Family-oriented Fairy tale, outer space and nautical themed items mainly for children's bedrooms

Glamour Life Stuff
Windows:

NA: August 31, 2006

Mac OS X:
June 1, 2007
Luxury, couture and glamour themed objects, floors and walls

Happy Holiday Stuff
Windows:

NA: November 7, 2006

Mac OS X:
September 4, 2007
All items from Holiday Party Pack plus added Asian and European holiday themed stuff

Celebration! Stuff
Windows:

NA: April 3, 2007

Wedding themed hairstyles, fashions and accessories, furniture, and other party enhancers

H&M Fashion Stuff
Windows:

NA: June 5, 2007

Fashion collections from H&M and H&M branded build objects

Teen Style Stuff
Windows:

NA: November 5, 2007

Goth, Thrasher and Socialite themed stuff for teenagers' bedrooms, teenage haircuts and new teenage clothes

Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff
Windows:

NA: April 15, 2008

Kitchen and bathroom objects, floors, walls and clothing items

IKEA Home Stuff
Windows:

NA: June 24, 2008

Fashionable furniture, floors and walls from the styles of IKEA

Mansion & Garden Stuff
Windows:

NA: November 17, 2008

Items featuring three new decorative themes (Moroccan, Art Deco and Second Empire)

text: Core game editions[edit]

text:
Name
Release date
Includes

The Sims 2[54]
Windows:

NA: September 14, 2004

EU: September 16, 2004

Mac OS X:
June 13, 2005
The first release of the core game on four CDs.

The Sims 2 Special DVD Edition
Windows:

NA: September 17, 2004

The core game on one DVD, plus a bonus DVD with exclusive content.

The Sims 2 Holiday Edition (2005)
Windows:

NA: November 15, 2005

The core game and The Sims 2 Holiday Party Pack.

The Sims 2 Holiday Edition (2006)[55]
Windows:

NA: November 7, 2006

The core game and The Sims 2 Happy Holiday Stuff.

The Sims 2 Deluxe[56]
Windows:

NA: May 8, 2007

The core game and The Sims 2 Nightlife, and a new bonus DVD that is different from the one included in the Special DVD Edition.

The Sims 2 Double Deluxe[57]
Windows:

NA: April 15, 2008

The Sims 2 Deluxe and The Sims 2 Celebration! Stuff

The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection
Windows:

WW: July 16, 2014 - July 31, 2014

(exclusive to existing Origin customers that proved they owned the original Sims 2 game from July 16 until July 31, 2014, retail release not confirmed)
The Sims 2 Double Deluxe, The Sims 2 University Life Collection, The Sims 2 Best of Business Collection, The Sims 2 Fun with Pets Collection, The Sims 2 Seasons, The Sims 2 Bon Voyage, The Sims 2 FreeTime, The Sims 2 Apartment Life, The Sims 2 Glamour Life Stuff, and The Sims 2 Happy Holiday Stuff

The Sims 2 Super Collection
Mac OS X:

NA: August 7, 2014

The core game, The Sims 2 University, The Sims 2 Nightlife, The Sims 2 Open for Business, The Sims 2 Pets, The Sims 2 Seasons, The Sims 2 Bon Voyage, The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff, The Sims 2 Glamour Life Stuff, and The Sims 2 Happy Holiday Stuff (The Sims 2 FreeTime and The Sims 2 Apartment Life along with the remaining stuff packs have not been included due to their unavailability for Mac at the time of its release)

text: Expansion-only compilations[edit]

text: Compilations of expansion packs and stuff packs without the core game have also been released.

text:
Name
Release date
Includes

University Life Collection[58]
Windows:

NA: August 24, 2009

The Sims 2: University, The Sims 2: IKEA Home Stuff, and The Sims 2 Teen Style Stuff.

Best of Business Collection[59]
Windows:

NA: October 6, 2009

The Sims 2: Open for Business, The Sims 2: H&M Fashion Stuff, and The Sims 2: Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff.

Fun with Pets Collection[60]
Windows:

NA: January 12, 2010

The Sims 2: Pets, The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff, and The Sims 2: Mansion & Garden Stuff.

text: Downloadable content[edit]

text: Pre-order content[edit]

text: Most of expansion packs and stuff packs were released with pre-order items. This game content was redeemable at the official site using a code supplied by the retailer from which the player purchased, each retailer was often associated with an exclusive download. A total of 60 pre-order items were released.

text: The Sims 2 Store[edit]

text: The Sims 2 Store was an online store where players of The Sims 2 for PC could purchase and download content for their game online for additional fees. It offered objects, clothing, skins, and hairstyles that are both exclusive to the store and also come from earlier expansion and stuff packs.

text: It also had featured seven exclusive item collections that could only be found in the store. The store used a point system that players can purchase. It was opened from July 2008 to March 31, 2011 as a beta version limited to the United States and Canada. To download, players must install The Sims 2 Store Edition and the EA Download Manager. The exclusive collections were "Cubic", "Art Deco", "Spooky", "Castle", "Asian Fusion", "Art Nouveaulicious" and "Oh Baby", including a total of 471 items.

text: The Sims 2: Store Edition and the savegame can't be used with The Sims 2: Ultimate Collection.

text: Third-party tools[edit]

text: SimPE is an open-source utility for The Sims 2 that allows editing of Sims' characteristics, relationships and careers. It also allows the creation of objects. As the tool is intended for use by experienced modders, the SimPE interface is not considered intuitive[61] and users risk corrupting the game files.[62] TS2 Enhancer, developed by Rick Halle, is a commercial utility for editing characters and neighborhoods, but has since fallen into disuse.[63]

text: Notes[edit]

text: Jump up ^ Aspyr published the OS X version


document_title: John McCrae

question_text: where was john mccrae when he wrote in flanders fields

root

text: John McCrae

text: Biography[edit]

text: McCrae was born in McCrae House in Guelph, Ontario to Lieutenant-Colonel David McCrae and Janet Simpson Eckford; he was the grandson of Scottish immigrants. His brother, Dr. Thomas McCrae, became professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore and close associate of Sir William Osler. His sister Geills married a lawyer, Kilgour, and moved to Winnipeg.[1]

tag: p

text: McCrae attended the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute. He took a year off his studies due to recurring problems with asthma.

text: Among his papers in the John McCrae House in Guelph is a letter he wrote on July 18, 1893 to Laura Kains while he trained as an artilleryman at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. "I have a manservant .. Quite a nobby place it is, in fact .. My windows look right out across the bay, and are just near the water’s edge; there is a good deal of shipping at present in the port; and the river looks very pretty."

text: He was a resident master in English and Mathematics in 1894 at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph.[2]

text: McCrae returned to the University of Toronto and completed his B.A., then returned again to study medicine on a scholarship. While attending university he joined the Zeta Psi Fraternity (Theta Xi chapter; class of 1894) and published his first poems.

text: At medical school, McCrae tutored other students to help pay his tuition. Two of his students were among the first female doctors in Ontario.[3]

text: McCrae graduated in 1898. He was first a resident house-officer at Toronto General Hospital, then in 1899 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.[4] In 1902, he was appointed resident pathologist at Montreal General Hospital and later became assistant pathologist to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Quebec. In 1900 McCrae served in South Africa as a lieutenant in the Canadian Field Artillery during the Boer War (1899 to 1902). In 1904, he was appointed an associate in medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital. Later that year, he went to England where he studied for several months and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

text: In 1905, McCrae set up his own practice although he continued to work and lecture at several hospitals. The same year, he was appointed pathologist to the Montreal Foundling and Baby Hospital. In 1908, he was appointed physician to the Alexandra Hospital for Contagious Diseases. In 1910, he accompanied Lord Grey, the Governor General of Canada, on a canoe trip to Hudson Bay to serve as expedition physician.

text: McCrae served in the artillery during the Second Boer War, and upon his return was appointed professor of pathology at the University of Vermont, where he taught until 1911; he also taught at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.

text: McCrae was the co-author, with J. G. Adami, of a medical textbook, A Text-Book of Pathology for Students of Medicine (1912; 2nd ed., 1914).

text: World War I[edit]

text: When Britain declared war on Germany at the start of World War I, Canada, as a Dominion within the British Empire, was at war as well. McCrae was appointed as Medical Officer and Major of the 1st Brigade CFA (Canadian Field Artillery).[5] He treated wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, from a hastily dug, 8 foot by 8 foot bunker dug in the back of the dyke along the Yser Canal about 2 miles north of Ypres.[6] McCrae's friend and former militia pal, Lt. Alexis Helmer,[7] was killed in the battle, and his burial inspired the poem, "In Flanders Fields", which was written on May 3, 1915 and first published in the magazine Punch.

text: From June 1, 1915, McCrae was ordered away from the artillery to set up No. 3 Canadian General Hospital at Dannes-Camiers near Boulogne-sur-Mer, northern France. C.L.C. Allinson reported that McCrae "most unmilitarily told [me] what he thought of being transferred to the medicals and being pulled away from his beloved guns. His last words to me were: 'Allinson, all the goddamn doctors in the world will not win this bloody war: what we need is more and more fighting men.'"[8]

text: "In Flanders Fields" appeared anonymously in Punch on December 8, 1915, but in the index to that year McCrae was named as the author. The verses swiftly became one of the most popular poems of the war, used in countless fund-raising campaigns and frequently translated (a Latin version begins In agro belgico...). "In Flanders Fields" was also extensively printed in the United States, which was contemplating joining the war, alongside a 'reply' by R. W. Lillard, ("...Fear not that you have died for naught, / The torch ye threw to us we caught...").

text: For eight months the hospital operated in Durbar tents (donated by the Begum of Bhopal and shipped from India), but after suffering from storms, floods, and frosts it was moved in February 1916 into the old Jesuit College in Boulogne-sur-Mer.

text: McCrae, now "a household name, albeit a frequently misspelt one",[9] regarded his sudden fame with some amusement, wishing that "they would get to printing 'In F.F.' correctly: it never is nowadays"; but (writes his biographer) "he was satisfied if the poem enabled men to see where their duty lay."[10]

text: On January 28, 1918, while still commanding No. 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill) at Boulogne, McCrae died of pneumonia with "extensive pneumococcus meningitis".[11] He was buried the following day in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of Wimereux Cemetery,[12] just a couple of kilometres up the coast from Boulogne, with full military honours.[13] His flag-draped coffin was borne on a gun carriage and the mourners – who included Sir Arthur Currie and many of McCrae's friends and staff – were preceded by McCrae's charger, "Bonfire", with McCrae's boots reversed in the stirrups. Bonfire was with McCrae from Valcartier, Quebec until his death and was much loved.[6][13] McCrae's gravestone is placed flat, as are all the others in the section, because of the unstable sandy soil.[14]

text: "In Flanders Fields"[edit]

text: A collection of his poetry, In Flanders Fields and Other Poems[15] (1918), was published after his death.

text:
"In Flanders Fields"
    In Flanders fields the poppies blow
          Between the crosses, row on row,
       That mark our place; and in the sky
       The larks, still bravely singing, fly
    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

        We are the dead, short days ago
      We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
       Loved and were loved, and now we lie
             In Flanders fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe:
    To you from failing hands we throw
       The torch; be yours to hold it high.
       If ye break faith with us who die
    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
             In Flanders fields.

text: Though various legends have developed as to the inspiration for the poem, the most commonly held belief is that McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields" on May 3, 1915, the day after presiding over the funeral and burial of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who had been killed during the Second Battle of Ypres. The poem was written as he sat upon the back of a medical field ambulance near an advance dressing post at Essex Farm, just north of Ypres. The poppy, which was a central feature of the poem, grew in great numbers in the spoiled earth of the battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders.

text: In 1855, British historian Lord Macaulay, writing about the site of the Battle of Landen (in modern Belgium, 100 miles from Ypres) in 1693, wrote "The next summer the soil, fertilised by twenty thousand corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveller who, on the road from Saint Tron to Tirlemont, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished, that the earth was disclosing her blood,[16] and refusing to cover the slain."[citation needed]

text: The Canadian government has placed a memorial to John McCrae that features "In Flanders Fields" at the site of the dressing station which sits beside the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Essex Farm Cemetery. The Belgian government has named this site the "John McCrae Memorial Site".

text: Legacy[edit]

text: McCrae was designated a Person of National Historic Significance in 1946.[17]

text: McCrae was the great-uncle of former Alberta MP David Kilgour and of Kilgour's sister Geills Turner, who married former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner.

text: In 1918, Lieut. John Philip Sousa wrote the music to "In Flanders Fields the poppies grow" words by Lieut.-Col John McCrae.[18]

text: The Cloth Hall of the city of Ieper (Ypres in French and English) in Belgium has a permanent war museum[19] called the "In Flanders Fields Museum", named after the poem. There are also a photograph and a short biographical memorial to McCrae in the St George Memorial Church in Ypres. In May 2007, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the writing of his best-known poem with a two-day literary conference.[20]

text: Several institutions have been named in McCrae's honour, including John McCrae Public School in Guelph, John McCrae Public School in Markham, John McCrae Senior Public School in Toronto and John McCrae Secondary School in Ottawa, Ontario.

text: A bronze plaque memorial dedicated to Lt. Col. John McCrae was erected by the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute.[21]

text: McCrae House was converted into a museum. The current Canadian War Museum has a gallery for special exhibits, called The Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae Gallery.

text: In May 2015, a statue of McCrae by Ruth Abernathy was erected on Green Island (Rideau River) in Ottawa, Ontario. McCrae is dressed as an artillery officer and his medical bag nearby, as he writes. The statue shows the destruction of the battlefield and, at his feet, the poppies which are a symbol of Remembrance of World War I and all armed conflict since. A copy of that statue was erected at Guelph Civic Museum in Guelph in 2015.

text: The street next to the cemetery where he is buried is named in his honour, although the street is called "Rue Mac Crae".


document_title: Timeline of the telephone

question_text: when was the telephone released to the public

text: Timeline of the telephone

text: Up to 1875[edit]

text:
1667: Robert Hooke creates an acoustic string telephone that conveys sounds over a taut extended wire by mechanical vibrations.[1][2]
1844: Innocenzo Manzetti first suggests the idea of an electric "speaking telegraph", or telephone.
1849: Antonio Meucci demonstrates a communicating device to individuals in Havana. It is disputed if this is an electromagnetic telephone, but is said to involve direct transmission of electricity into the user's body.
1854: Charles Bourseul publishes a description of a make-and-break telephone transmitter and receiver in L'Illustration, (Paris) but does not construct a working instrument.
1854: Meucci demonstrates an electric voice-operated device in New York, but it is not clear what kind of device he demonstrated.
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.
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.
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.
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." If he reads Meucci's offer of collaboration, Manzetti does not respond.
1871: Meucci files a patent caveat (a statement of intention to file a patent application)[3] for a Sound Telegraph, but it does not describe an electromagnetic telephone.
1872: Elisha Gray founds the Western Electric Manufacturing Company.
1872: Professor Vanderwyde demonstrates Reis's telephone in New York.
July 1873: Thomas Edison notes varying resistance in carbon grains due to pressure, and builds a rheostat based on the principle but abandons it because of its sensitivity to vibration.
May 1874: Gray invents an electromagnet device for transmitting musical tones. Some of his receivers use a metallic diaphragm.
July 1874: Alexander Graham Bell conceives the theoretical concept for the telephone while vacationing at his parents' farm near Brantford, Canada. Alexander Melville Bell records notes of his son's conversation in his personal journal.
29 December 1874: Gray demonstrates his musical tones device and transmits "familiar melodies through telegraph wire" at the Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, Illinois.
4 May 1875: Bell conceives of using varying resistance in a wire conducting electric current to create a varying current amplitude.[4]
2 June 1875: Bell transmits the sound of a plucked steel reed using electromagnet instruments.
1 July 1875: Bell uses a bi-directional "gallows" telephone that was able to transmit "indistinct but voice-like sounds" but not clear speech. Both the transmitter and the receiver were identical membrane electromagnet instruments.
1875: Thomas Edison experiments with acoustic telegraphy and, in November, builds an electro-dynamic receiver but does not exploit it.

tag: ul

text: 1876 to 1878[edit]

text:
11 February 1876: Elisha Gray invents a liquid transmitter for use with a telephone, but he did not make one.
14 February 1876, about 9:30 am: Gray or his lawyer brings Gray's patent caveat for the telephone to the Washington, D.C. Patent Office (a caveat was a notice of intention to file a patent application. It was like a patent application, but without a request for examination, for the purpose of notifying the patent office of a possible invention in process).
14 February 1876, about 11:30 am: Bell's lawyer brings to the same patent office Bell's patent application for the telephone. Bell's lawyer requests that it be registered immediately in the cash receipts blotter.
14 February 1876, about 1:30 pm: Approximately two hours later Elisha Gray's patent caveat is registered in the cash blotter. Although his caveat was not a full application, Gray could have converted it into a patent application and contested Bell's priority, but did not do so because of advice from his lawyer and his involvement with acoustic telegraphy. The result was that the patent was awarded to Bell.[5]
7 March 1876: Bell's U.S. Patent, No. 174,465 for the telephone is granted.
10 March 1876: Bell first successfully transmits speech, saying "Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!" using a liquid transmitter as described in Gray's caveat, and Bell's own electromagnetic receiver.
16 May 1876: Thomas Edison files first patent application for acoustic telegraphy for which U.S. patent 182,996 was granted October 10, 1876.
25 June 1876: Bell exhibits his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where it draws enthusiastic reactions from Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil and Lord Kelvin, attracting the attention of the press and resulting in the first announcements of the invention to the general public.
10 August 1876: Alexander Graham Bell makes the world's first long-distance telephone call, over a distance of about 6 miles, between Brantford and Paris, Ontario, Canada.
1876: Hungarian Tivadar Puskas invents the telephone switchboard exchange (later working with Edison).
9 October 1876: Bell makes the first two-way long-distance telephone call between Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts.
October 1876: Edison tests his first carbon microphone.
1877: The first experimental Telephone Exchange in Boston.
20 January 1877: Edison "first [succeeds] in transmitting over wires many articulated sentences" using carbon granules as a pressure-sensitive varying resistance under the pressure of a diaphragm.[6]
30 January 1877: Bell's U.S. Patent No. 186,787 is granted for an electromagnetic telephone using permanent magnets, iron diaphragms, and a call bell.
4 March 1877: Emile Berliner invents a microphone based on "loose contact" between two metal electrodes, an improvement on Reis' Telephone, and in April 1877 files a caveat of an invention in process.
April 1877: A telephone line connects the workshop of Charles Williams, Jr., located in Boston, to his house in Somerville, Massachusetts at 109 Court Street in Boston, where Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson had previously experimented with their telephone. The telephones became No. 1 and 2 in the Bell Telephone Company.[7]
27 April 1877: Edison files telephone patent applications. U.S. patents (Nos. 474,230, 474,231 and 474,232) were awarded to Edison in 1892 over the competing claims of Alexander Graham Bell, Emile Berliner, Elisha Gray, Amos Dolbear, J.W. McDonagh, G.B. Richmond, W.L.W. Voeker, J.H. Irwin and Francis Blake Jr.[8] Edison's carbon granules transmitter and Bell's electromagnetic receiver are used, with improvements, by the Bell system for many decades thereafter.[9]
4 June 1877: Emile Berliner files telephone patent application that includes a carbon microphone transmitter.
9 July 1877: The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint-stock company, is organized by Alexander Graham Bell's future father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a lawyer who becomes its first president.
6 October 1877: the Scientific American publishes the invention from Bell - at that time still without a ringer.
25 October 1877: the article in the Scientific American is discussed at the Telegraphenamt in Berlin
12 November 1877: The first commercial telephone company enters telephone business in Friedrichsberg close to Berlin[10] using the Siemens pipe as ringer and telephone devices build by Siemens.
1 December 1877: Western Union enters the telephone business using Edison's superior carbon microphone transmitter.
28 January 1878: The first commercial North American telephone exchange is opened in New Haven, Connecticut.
4 February 1878: Edison demonstrates the telephone between Menlo Park, New Jersey and Philadelphia, a distance of 210 kilometres (130 mi).
14 June 1878: The Telephone Company (Bell's Patents) Ltd. is registered in London. Opened in London on 21 August 1879, it is Europe's first telephone exchange, followed a couple of weeks later by one in Manchester.[11]
12 September 1878: the Bell Telephone Company sues Western Union for infringing Bell's patents.
1878: The first Australian telephone trials were made between Semaphore and Kapunda (and later Adelaide and Port Adelaide) in South Australia.[12]

text: 1879 to 1919[edit]

text:
Early months of 1879: The Bell Telephone Company is near bankruptcy and desperate to get a transmitter to equal Edison's carbon transmitter.
17 February 1879: Bell Telephone merges with the New England Telephone Company to form the National Bell Telephone Company. Theodore Vail takes over operations.
1879: Francis Blake invents a carbon transmitter similar to Edison's that saves the Bell company from extinction.
2 August 1879: The Edison Telephone Company of London Ltd, registered. Opened in London 6 September 1879.
10 September 1879: Connolly and McTighe patent a "dial" telephone exchange (limited in the number of lines to the number of positions on the dial.).
1879: The International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) of Brussels, Belgium was founded by Bell Telephone Company president Gardiner Greene Hubbard, initially to sell imported telephones and switchboards in Continental Europe.[13][14] International Bell rapidly evolved into an important European telephone service provider and manufacturer, with major operations in several countries.
19 February 1880: The photophone, also called a radiophone, is invented jointly by Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter at Bell's Volta Laboratory.[15][16] The device allowed for the transmission of sound on a beam of light.
20 March 1880: National Bell Telephone merges with others to form the American Bell Telephone Company.
1 April 1880: world's first wireless telephone call on Bell and Tainter's photophone (distant precursor to fiber-optic communications) from the Franklin School in Washington, D.C. to the window of Bell's laboratory, 213 meters away.[17][18]
1 July 1881: The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States.[19]
11 October 1881: The Sydney telephone exchange opened with 12 subscribers.
1882: A telephone company—an American Bell Telephone Company affiliate—is set up in Mexico City.
14 May 1883: The Adelaide exchange was opened, with 48 subscribers.[12]
7 September 1883: The Port Adelaide exchange was opened, with 21 subscribers.[12]
4 September 1884: Opening of telephone service between New York and Boston (235 miles).[20]
3 March 1885: The American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) is incorporated as the long-distance division of American Bell Telephone Company. It will become the head of the Bell System on the last day of 1899.
1886: Gilliland's Automatic circuit changer is put into service between Worcester and Leicester featuring the first operator dialing allowing one operator to run two exchanges.
1887: Tivadar Puskás introduced the multiplex switchboard, that had an epochal significance in the further development of telephone exchange.[21]
13 January 1887: the Government of the United States moves to annul the master patent issued to Alexander Graham Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. The case, known as the 'Government Case', is later dropped after it was revealed that the U.S. Attorney General, Augustus Hill Garland had been given millions of dollars of stock in the company trying to unseat Bell's telephone patent.
1888: Telephone patent court cases are confirmed by the Supreme Court, see The Telephone Cases
1889: AT&T becomes the overall holding company for all the Bell companies.
2 November 1889: A.G. Smith patents a telegraph switch which provides for trunks between groups of selectors allowing for the first time, fewer trunks than there are lines, and automatic selection of an idle trunk.
10 March 1891: Almon Strowger patents the Strowger switch the first Automatic telephone exchange.
30 October 1891: The independent Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company is formed.
3 May 1892: Thomas Edison awarded patents for the carbon microphone based on applications lodged in 1877.
18 October 1892: Opening of telephone service between New York and Chicago (950 miles).[20]
3 November 1892: The first Strowger switch goes into operation in LaPorte, Indiana with 75 subscribers and capacity for 99.
30 January 1894: The second fundamental Bell patent for the telephone expire; Independent telephone companies established, and independent manufacturing companies (Stromberg-Carlson in 1894 and Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company in 1897).
30 December 1899: American Bell Telephone Company is purchased by its own long-distance subsidiary, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) to bypass state regulations limiting capitalization. AT&T assumes leadership role of the Bell System.
25 December 1900: John W. Atkins, the manager at International Ocean Telegraph Company (IOTC), a subsidiary of Western Union Telegraph Company made the first international telephone call over telegraph cable at 09:55am from his office in Key West to Havana, Cuba.[22] Atkins was reported in the Florida Times Union and Citizen as saying, "For a long time there was no sound, except the roar heard at night sometimes, caused by electric light current." He continued calling Cuba and finally came back the words, clear and distinct: "I don't understand you."[23]
27 February 1901: United States Court of Appeal declares void Emile Berliner's patent for a telephone transmitter used by the Bell telephone system
1902: The first Australian interstate calls between Mt Gambier and Nelson.[12]
26 February 1914: Boston-Washington underground cable commenced commercial service.[20]
16 January 1915: The first automatic Panel exchange was installed at the Mulberry Central Office in Newark, New Jersey; but was a semi-automatic system using non-dial telephones.
25 January 1915: First transcontinental telephone call (3600 miles), with Thomas Augustus Watson at 333 Grant Avenue in San Francisco receiving a call from Alexander Graham Bell at 15 Dey Street in New York City, facilitated by a newly invented vacuum tube amplifier.[24]
21 October 1915: First transmission of speech across the Atlantic Ocean by radiotelephone from Arlington, Va. to Paris, France.[20]
1919: The first rotary dial telephones in the Bell System installed in Norfolk, Virginia. Telephones that lacked dials and touch-tone pads were no longer made by the Bell System after 1978.[citation needed]
1919: AT&T conducts more than 4,000 measurements of people's heads to gauge the best dimensions of standard headsets so that callers' lips would be near the microphone when holding handsets up to their ears.[25]

text: 1920 to 1969[edit]

text:
16 July 1920: World's first radiotelephone service commences public service between Los Angeles, Calif. and Santa Catalina Island.[20]
11 April 1921: Opening of deep sea cable from Key West, Fla., to Havana, Cuba (115 miles).[20]
22 December 1923: Opening of second transcontinental telephone line via a southern route.[20]
7 March 1926: First transatlantic telephone call, from London to New York.[26]
7 January 1927: Transatlantic telephone service inaugurated for commercial service (3500 miles).[20]
17 January 1927: Opening of third transcontinental telephone line via a northern route.[20]
7 April 1927: world's first videophone call via an electro-mechanical AT&T unit, from Washington, D.C. to New York City, by then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover.[27][28]
8 December 1929: Opening of commercial ship-to-shore telephone service.[20]
3 April 1930: Opening of transoceanic telephone service to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay and subsequently to all other South American countries.[20]
25 April 1935: First telephone call around the world by wire and radio.[20]
1937: The Western Electric type 302 telephone becomes available for service in the United States.
8 December 1937: Opening of fourth transcontinental telephone line.[20]
1941: Multi-frequency dialing introduced for operators in Baltimore, Maryland
1942: Telephone production is halted at Western Electric until 1945 for civilian distribution due to the retooling of factories for military equipment during WWII.
1946: National Numbering Plan (area codes)
1946: first commercial mobile phone call
1946: Bell Labs develops the germanium point-contact transistor
1947: December, W. Rae Young and Douglas H. Ring, Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for provisioning of mobile telephone service.
1948: Phil Porter, a Bell Labs engineer, proposed that cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas pointing in 3 directions.
1950: The Western Electric Type 500 telephone becomes available in the United States after announcement in 1949.
30 June 1948: First public demonstration of the transistor by Bell Telephone Laboratories.[20]
10 November 1951: Direct Distance Dialing (DDD) first offered on trial basis at Englewood, New Jersey, to 11 selected major cities across the United States; this service grew rapidly across major cities during the 1950s
1955: the laying of trans-Atlantic cable TAT-1 began - 36 circuits, later increased to 48 by reducing the bandwidth from 4 kHz to 3 kHz
1958: Modems used for direct connection via voice phone lines
1960: Bell Labs conducts extensive field trial of an electronic central office in Morris, Illinois, known at the Morris System.
1960's: Bell Labs developed the electronics for cellular phones
1961: Initiation of Touch-Tone service trials
1962: T-1 service in Skokie, Illinois
1963, November 18: AT&T commences the first subscriber Touch-Tone service in the towns of Carnegie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, using push-button telephones that replaced rotary dial instruments.
1965 (May 31): The world's first electronic switching system commences commercial service in Succasunna, New Jersey in form of the 1ESS.
1965: first geosynchronous communications satellite - 240 circuits or one TV signal

text: 1970 to 1999[edit]

text:
1970: ESS-2 electronic switch.
1970: modular telephone cords and jacks introduced .
1970: Amos E. Joel, Jr. of Bell Labs invented the "call handoff" system for "cellular mobile communication system" (patent granted 1972).
1971: AT&T submitted a proposal for cellular phone service to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
3 April 1973: Motorola employee Martin Cooper placed the first hand-held cell phone call to Joel Engel, head of research at AT&T's Bell Labs, while talking on the first Motorola DynaTAC prototype.
1973: packet switched voice connections over ARPANET with Network Voice Protocol (NVP).
1976: Kazuo Hashimoto invented Caller ID
1978: Bell Labs launched a trial of the first commercial cellular network in Chicago using Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS).
1978: World's first NMT phone call in Tampere, Finland.[29]
1979: VoIP - NVP running on top of early versions of IP
1981: The world's first fully automatic mobile phone system NMT is started in Sweden and Norway.
1981: BT introduces the British Telephone Sockets system.
1982: FCC approved AT&T proposal for AMPS and allocated frequencies in the 824-894 MHz band.
1982: Caller ID patented by Carolyn Doughty, Bell Labs
1983: last manual telephone switchboard in Maine is retired
1984: AT&T completes the divestiture of its local operating companies. This forms a new AT&T (long distance service and equipment sales) and the Baby Bells.
1987: ADSL introduced
1988: First transatlantic fiber optic cable TAT-8, carrying 40,000 circuits
1990: analog AMPS was superseded by Digital AMPS.
1991: the GSM mobile phone network is started in Finland, with the first phone call in Tampere.[29]
1993: Telecom Relay Service available for the disabled
1994: The IBM Simon becomes the first smartphone on the market.
1995: Caller ID implemented nationally in USA
1999: creation of the Asterisk Private branch exchange

text: 2000 to present[edit]

text:
11 June 2002: Antonio Meucci is recognized for "...his work in the invention of the telephone" (but not "...for inventing the telephone") by the United States House of Representatives, in United States HRes. 269.[30]
21 June 2002: The Parliament of Canada responds by passing a motion unanimously 10 days later recognizing Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone.[31][32]
2005: Mink, Louisiana finally receives traditional landline telephone service (one of the last in the United States).[33]