Antonio Meucci - not Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.  Meucci filed for a patent caveat (notice of intent to patent), but due to poverty and language barriers never got his invention patented.  Meucci presented his prototype and technical drawings to officials at Western Union Telegraph Company hoping to partner with them.  After 2 years of rebuffs and delays by the company, he demanded his materials returned.  He was told they had been lost.  This was 1874 and Meucci's caveat had expired.  Meucci went to the patent office and asked for his technical drawings back.  The patent office also claimed to have lost his work.  In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.  Later investigations uncovered illegal relationships between Bell's company and both the officials at the patent office as well as with the Western Union Company.

The Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA) is the largest and oldest Italian-American association in the country.  We have over 600,000 members and our foundation has given over $93 million to various charities and philanthropic causes since its inception.

Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance movement of the Middle Ages.  What was the Renaissance?  Only the most influential period of world history.  Previously held standards were wiped out with a brush stroke, a voyage or a telescope.  The idea that the world was flat was dispelled with Columbus' voyage to the New World.  The teachings that the Earth was the center of the universe were halted by Galileo who proved that the Earth rotated around the Sun and not the reverse.  Michelangelo and Da Vinci created artistic masterpeices along with many other Italian artists whose works are revered today.  Yes, the world went through colossal changes during that time and it was led by Italians.

The following were all invented by Italians -

Telephone, wireless telegraph,  thermometer, telescope, water pump, compass, microscope, battery, jacuzzi, nitroglycerin, barometer, carbon paper, Zamboni (ice resurfacer), anemometer (wind speed measure), eyeglasses, parachute, piano, scissors, and many other things too numerous to mention.

Filippo Mazzei was an Italian who was freinds with many of our founding fathers.  He owned a residence in Virginia where he became close friends with his neighbor Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson found Mazzei's knowledge of the world and his ideas in freedom most enlightening.  Mazzei taught Jefferson the principle that "All men are by nature equally free and independent".  This was conceived from Mazzei's knowledge of history and early ideals of independence by ancient cultures.  Jefferson made good use of the phrase when writing the Declaration of Independence in his own eloquent style.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."