The first sound recording is often credited to Thomas Edison, but in 1857, a typographer named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville actually beat him by inventing the phonautograph, a device designed to capture sound waves on paper. It was never meant to be heard, but more than 150 years later, researchers were able to reproduce the sound and bring it back to life. It’s an amazing story – and it happened almost on accident.