May 10: First Phone in the WHite House

On this date in History .... May 10, 1877:

President Rutherford B. Hayes has the White House's first telephone installed in the mansion’s telegraph room. President Hayes embraced the new technology, though he rarely received phone calls. In fact, the Treasury Department possessed the only other direct phone line to the White House at that time. The White House phone number was "1." 

It would be 50 more years until President Herbert Hoover had the first telephone line installed at the president's desk in the Oval Office.