In 1935, a house fire in London killed five women. Though a neighbor tried to phone the fire department, he was put on hold and unable to get through, leading to an outraged letter in The Times and the beginning of emergency phone service as we know it. 999, chosen because the number was easy to customize for free use on rotary phones and praised by The Times for "its sinister significance" as a number one-third as great as the Number of the Beast. On June 30th of 1937, 999 service launched; by 1948, the whole country was covered, and two years later 999 was fielding 80,000 calls a year.
75 years later, the emergency number sees an average of 597,000 calls a week, and the original rationale for choosing "999" is long gone. As a result,...
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The emergency telephone number differs from country to country. It is typically a three-digit number, so that it can be easily remembered and dialed quickly.
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