@circa.history: On April 9, 1860, a French inventor named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville made the oldest known recording of an audible human voice. He used a device he had invented called the phonautograph, which could capture sound waves as tracings on a smoke-blackened paper or glass. He recorded himself singing the song "Au Clair de la Lune" on his phonautograph machine, but he did not intend to play it back. He only wanted to study the shape of the sound waves. His recording was forgotten until 2008, when it was digitally scanned and converted into sound by a group of audio historians at First Sounds. Audio courtesy of First Sounds at firstsounds.org. #ThisDayInHistory #onthisdayinhistory #onthisdayinmusic #firstsoundrecording #firstsound #edouardleonscottdemartinville #inventor #auclairdelalune