early 12c., one of the ecclesiastical princes who constitute the sacred college (short for cardinalis ecclesiae Romanae or episcopus cardinalis), from Latin cardinalis principal, chief, essential (see cardinal (adj.)). Ecclesiastical use began for the presbyters of the chief (cardinal) churches of Rome.
In 1889, the rotary telephone dial was invented by Almon B. Strowger , a Kansas City undertaker. The first dial exchange was installed at La Porte, Indiana, in 1892. In 1943, Philadelphia was the last major area to give up dual service.
The same concept was later used for cellular telephone and cordless telephone models. To miniaturize the rotary dial sufficiently to fit in the Trimline handset, the designers invented an unusual moving fingerstop. Like in the Princess line, the dial was lit when the handset was removed from the base. The Trimline was also one of the first phones to use the predecessor of the now-ubiquitous RJ11 modular phone plug and jack.