Henry Steinway, Jr. receives the United States patent #26,532, to “overstringing for grand piano”. Henry Steinway, Jr. raised the bass strings and rotated them over the treble strings, “whereby I am enabled not only to obtain all the results obtained on piano-fortes of other forms by overstringing; but I’m enabled to bring the bridges nearer to the middle of the sound board than they are in any other grand piano-forte.” This patent is a major turning point in the history of pianomaking: the modern piano is born. All currently made pianos are directly based on the system of overstringing, invented by Henry Steinway, Jr.