Who Is Martin Cooper, and How Did He Revolutionize Our Lives?

CNN reports that on this date in 1973, Martin Cooper, age 44, made the first cell phone call from New York City to a landline telephone at Bell Labs. This is known as "rubbing it in," as he proved that Motorola had beaten Bell Labs in the race to develop the first workable cell phone. Now billions of cell phones have been sold, and cell phones have become popular in countries that up to now lacked the infrastructure to support a landline network.