This is the oldest recording of an American voice and the first-ever recording of a musical performance. Recorded by a Thomas Edison-invented phonograph in 1878, the audio recording (which lasts 78 seconds) is pretty much "as far back as we can go" in terms of the history of recorded sound.

The recording starts with a cornet solo and then transitions to a man reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Old Mother Hubbard." How did we manage to re-capture a recording from over 100 years ago? It all starts with Edison.

You see, the way the recording was made was by a sheet of tinfoil placed on the cylinder of Edison's phonograph. The AP explains:



A team of researchers sought to revive the recording by taking an optical scanner to replicate the action of the phonograph's stylus. Basically, it re-read the grooves in the foil and analyzed it to re-create the original sound. Technology is pretty damn cool, huh? You can listen to the 134-year-old recording here. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ABC News via Engadget, Image Credit: AP]