In 1874, Alexander Graham Bell spent the summer with his parents in Brantford, Ontario.

NEWYORKER: In the Air

Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, west of Toronto, plans a branch campus next year in Brantford, 40 kilometres (25 miles) away.

ECONOMIST: Canada

But if Alexander Graham Bell had fallen into the Grand River and drowned that day back in Brantford, the world would still have had the telephone, the only difference being that the telephone company would have been nicknamed Ma Gray, not Ma Bell.

NEWYORKER: In the Air