During his first presidential address to a joint session of Congress, he hearkened back to the country’s 100th anniversary. President Trump said that in 1876, ‘citizens from across our nation came to Philadelphia to celebrate America’s centennial’.

President Trump made the remarks during his first address to a joint session of Congress.

He said that during the first century the country’s builders and artists and inventors showed off their creations”. He said:
 “Alexander Graham Bell displayed his telephone for the first time. Remington unveiled the first typewriter. “An early attempt was made at electric light. Thomas Edison showed an automatic telegraph and an electric pen.”

While Edison and Remington were fair enough, the Alexander Graham Bell comment was amusing on many different levels. Firstly Bell did not deserve full credit for the invention of the telephone, that was invented by Elisha Gray and he was also Scottish. He
was born and raised in Edinburgh, went to University College London, and spent many years with his family in Canada before moving to the United States.

In other words, he was one of those immigrants who Trump is rather keen on booting out of the country. In fact, in 1876 he was not a naturalised US citizen, this did not happen until 1882.

Bell himself said he thought of himself as a ‘native son’ of all three of the countries he lived in: the US, but also Canada and the UK

Later in life he lived in a vast estate in Nova Scotia, Canada called Beinn Bhreagh - Gaelic for ‘beautiful mountain’ and you can’t get more American than that.

While Trump is talking about “making America great again” it seems he is recalling a past which never really was.