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.
When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007, he showed off a picture of an iPod with a rotary-phone dialer instead of a click wheel. A Samsung mobile phone, the X810, used a similar rotating wheel for input, so Apple's Tony Fadell, the engineer who's credited with inventing the first iPod, didn't like the idea. The company decided to abandon the click-wheel idea and try to build a multi-touch phone.