worksheet №2 b

read the text. put the verbs in brackets into their past form. guess, who is the text about?

he was born in edinburgh, scotland, in 1847. his father (be) a world-famous inventor of “visible speech”, which (help) deaf people to pronounce words they could not hear. between 1868 and 1870 he (work) with his father and (study) speech and (teach) deaf children in edinburgh. in 1866 he (start) thinking about sending tones by telegraph, and it was then that there (come) to his mind the idea of the “harmonic telegraph”, which would send musical tones electrically from one place to another. he (become) interested in the mechanical production of a sound. in this way, sound (can) be carried across wires at the speed of light. in 1876 he was able to develop the telephone, which enables people to talk to each other over long distances. in 1915 the first transcontinental telephone was opened. he (die) on august 2, 1922.