Back in March 2008, a clip of a woman supposedly singing the classic "Au Clair de la Lune," recorded in 1860 by the French inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on his "phonautograph" machine, which looks like this:
"When I first heard the recording as you hear it ... it was magical, so ethereal," audio historian David Giovannoni, who found the recording, told AP. [photo and quote from here]
It was previously thought that the oldest recording in history was of Thomas Edison singing a children's song, from 17 years later in 1877.
This is incredible!! Can you imagine, finding a 150 year-old, previously-unheard clip? I didn't think they had the technology so far back...to put it in perspective, that's BEFORE the Civil War.
You can listen to this amazing, tiny slice of audio history, with commentary from the head scientist afterward, at the BBC site here (let it play a bit...you might not hear anything at first, but then let it load and go back to the start in order to hear it)
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