On August 5, 1816, Sir John Barrow, the Secretary of the Admiralty, famously rejected Francis Ronalds' proposal for an electrical telegraph in 1816, dismissing it as "wholly unnecessary." This decision was a significant setback for the development of telecommunications technology and a classic example of the resistance to innovation that can sometimes occur within established institutions
The first commercial use of an electric telegraph was successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on July 25, 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London. The telegraph was used to transmit stock market prices between the two railway stations.
Cooke and Wheatstone's telegraph used five needles to represent the letters of the alphabet. The needles would be deflected in different directions depending on the electrical current that was sent through the wires. An operator would then read the position of the needles to determine the message.
The first fully operational electric telegraph ran from 1839 between Paddington and West Drayton railway stations, but at first it was slow to catch on and the British Admiralty dismissed it as "wholly unnecessary.". That is, until New Year's Day 1845 when the telegraph system helped catch murderer John Tawell. It was a sensation and telegraph cables were soon everywhere.
An electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. The first telegram in America was sent by Morse and his assistant Alfred Vail on January 6, 1838, across two miles (3 km) of wire at Speedwell Ironworks near Morristown, New Jersey. The message read: "A patient waiter is no loser." This first public transmission was witnessed by a mostly local crowd.
On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first ever long distance morse code message down an experimental telegraph line that ran from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol in Washington DC to Alfred Vail, in the old Mt. Clare Depot Baltimore. The message read: "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation from Numbers 23:23).
Following Morse's groundbreaking telegraph, commercial telegraphy took off in America with lines linking all the major metropolitan centers on the East Coast within the next decade. The overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to the east coast by October 24, 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express.
In 1858, after several failed attempts, American businessman and financier Cyrus West Field and his colleagues completed the first transatlantic telegraph cable, crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Valentia Island in Ireland to Heart's Content, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
After the first transatlantic telegraph message, the citizens of New York were so excited that they set the City Hall on fire during the celebrations. However, a weak signal forced a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable was successfully completed in 1866, stretching from Valentia Island, Ireland, to Heart's Content, Newfoundland.
The transatlantic telegraph cable reduced the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days to a matter of minutes.
The telegraph was a huge success, and it quickly became an essential tool for businesses and governments. It was used to transmit news, financial information, and military orders. The telegraph helped to revolutionize the way that people communicated, and it played a major role in the development of the Industrial Revolution.
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| Cooke and Wheatstone's five-needle, six-wire telegraph (1837). By Geni |
The first fully operational electric telegraph ran from 1839 between Paddington and West Drayton railway stations, but at first it was slow to catch on and the British Admiralty dismissed it as "wholly unnecessary.". That is, until New Year's Day 1845 when the telegraph system helped catch murderer John Tawell. It was a sensation and telegraph cables were soon everywhere.
An electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. The first telegram in America was sent by Morse and his assistant Alfred Vail on January 6, 1838, across two miles (3 km) of wire at Speedwell Ironworks near Morristown, New Jersey. The message read: "A patient waiter is no loser." This first public transmission was witnessed by a mostly local crowd.
On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first ever long distance morse code message down an experimental telegraph line that ran from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol in Washington DC to Alfred Vail, in the old Mt. Clare Depot Baltimore. The message read: "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation from Numbers 23:23).
Following Morse's groundbreaking telegraph, commercial telegraphy took off in America with lines linking all the major metropolitan centers on the East Coast within the next decade. The overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to the east coast by October 24, 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express.
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| A Morse key (c. 1900) By Hp.Baumeler |
In 1858, after several failed attempts, American businessman and financier Cyrus West Field and his colleagues completed the first transatlantic telegraph cable, crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Valentia Island in Ireland to Heart's Content, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
After the first transatlantic telegraph message, the citizens of New York were so excited that they set the City Hall on fire during the celebrations. However, a weak signal forced a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable was successfully completed in 1866, stretching from Valentia Island, Ireland, to Heart's Content, Newfoundland.
The transatlantic telegraph cable reduced the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days to a matter of minutes.
Long-distance romances conducted in pithy messages sprung up after the invention of the telegraph wire. Writer Ella Cheever Thayer, who had worked as a telegraph operator, saw the amorous possibilities this new system offered, and in 1879, she wrote her ground-breaking book Wired Love: a Romance of Dots and Dashes.
In the days of the telegraph, code 95 was the most important, meaning ‘urgent message'. Despite the cost of extra text, users did not omit pleasantries: ‘gm' for ‘good morning', ‘tnx' for ‘thanks' and ‘88' for ‘love and kisses.
A telegraph message sent by an electrical telegraph operator or telegrapher using Morse code (or a printing telegraph operator using plain text) was known as a telegram.
Titanic survivors were charged $1 per word to send telegrams from their lifeboats. One man used his last dollar to send the word 'Safe' to his mother.
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