This Day in History: Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland on this day in 1844, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C.
Thus was born one of the dominant methods of communication over long distances that would continue to be used for well over a century. Telegraphs aided in saving lives as well:
"On April 15, 1912, telegrapher John G. Phillips sent out the following Morse code message: 'CQD CQD SOS SOS CQD DE MGY MGY.' CQD stands for 'Come Quick Disaster' and SOS stands for 'Save Our Ship or Save Our Souls.' And DE MGY stands for 'from the RMS Titanic.'
We are all familiar with the fate of the RMS Titanic, but many of us fail to recognize that this Morse code message (and the other messages sent as soon as the ship struck an iceberg) is what led to the rescue of more than 700 passengers." Source
"At one point in the 1920s, Western Union and its army of uniformed messengers were sending more than 200 million telegrams every year. But the advent of faxes, then emails and finally SMS messaging saw the numbers dwindle, bringing to an end the golden age of the telegram." Source
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