Episode 1 of 3

Horizontal Recording Patent

When: 1887
Where: Washington, D.C.
Part of: Emile Berliner starts work leading to the invention of the gramophone

Berliner filed and received a patent for horizontal recording, a key innovation for the gramophone.

U.S. Patent 372,786 for horizontal recording was originally filed in May 1887 and refiled in September 1887. It was issued on November 8, 1887, establishing the legal basis for Berliner's lateral-cut disc technology.

Sources

Emile Berliner Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-10

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.