Country Code Mystery Solved
Nobody around these parts could tell me why the U.S. and Canada share the same country code. I mean, today, the actual phone systems certainly aren’t integrated–foreign companies are locked out of Canada, while there are no such restrictions in the U.S.; long-distance and cellphone billing work pretty differently too. So why do we both have that +1? Because of these guys:
The one on the left is Alexander Graham Bell, and on the right is his dad Melville. The Bell family emigrated from Scotland to Canada, and Melville stayed behind when A.G. moved to the U.S. When AT&T was founded, Melville ran its Canadian branch, Bell Canada, which remained part of AT&T until its antitrust breakup in 1956.