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N0KFQ > TODAY 06.01.14 17:23l 64 Lines 2742 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Jan 6
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Sent: 140106/1555Z 9940@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.57
Jan 6, 1838:
Morse demonstrates telegraph
On this day in 1838, Samuel Morse's telegraph system is
demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in
Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used
electric impulses to transmit encoded messages over a wire, would
eventually revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching
the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in
Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he
was interested in art, as well as electricity, still in its
infancy at the time. After college, Morse became a painter. In
1832, while sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly
discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for an electric
telegraph. He had no idea that other inventors were already at
work on the concept.
Morse spent the next several years developing a prototype and
took on two partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, to help him.
In 1838, he demonstrated his invention using Morse code, in which
dots and dashes represented letters and numbers. In 1843, Morse
finally convinced a skeptical Congress to fund the construction
of the first telegraph line in the United States, from
Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first
official telegram over the line, with the message: "What hath God
wrought!"
Over the next few years, private companies, using Morse's patent,
set up telegraph lines around the Northeast. In 1851, the New
York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was
founded; it would later change its name to Western Union. In
1861, Western Union finished the first transcontinental line
across the United States. Five years later, the first successful
permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean was constructed and by
the end of the century telegraph systems were in place in Africa,
Asia and Australia.
Because telegraph companies typically charged by the word,
telegrams became known for their succinct prose--whether they
contained happy or sad news. The word "stop," which was free, was
used in place of a period, for which there was a charge. In 1933,
Western Union introduced singing telegrams. During World War II,
Americans came to dread the sight of Western Union couriers
because the military used telegrams to inform families about
soldiers' deaths.
Over the course of the 20th century, telegraph messages were
largely replaced by cheap long-distance phone service, faxes and
email. Western Union delivered its final telegram in January
2006.
Samuel Morse died wealthy and famous in New York City on April 2,
1872, at age 80.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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