The first cell phone call was made 40 years ago today

People can't live with their cell phones nowadays but there was a time in human history when you had to make a call from a land line.

The first mobile phone call was made 40 years today, on April 3, 1973, by Motorola employee Martin Cooper. Using a prototype of what would become the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, the world's first commercial cell phone, Cooper stood near a 900 MHz base station on Sixth Avenue, between 53rd and 54th Streets, in New York City and placed a call to the headquarters of Bell Labs in New Jersey.

The substance of the call is lost to history, but it probably doesn't compare to the first telegram ("What hath God wrought"), first telephone call ("Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you"), or even the first text message ("Merry Christmas"). Cooper's inaugural mobile conversation is remembered as, "I'm ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end,' or something to that effect."

At least he didn't make the call while in the checkout line of the grocery store. You can say the rest is history because basically now life revolves around our smart phones. Now if you'll excuse me I need to check my Twitter app on my phone.

(Buy an awesome smart phone here.)