'What hath God wrought': the telegraph

Samuel Morse's line between Washington and Baltimore carried the first formal message in code — information traveling without any physical carrier to see.

Why it matters

The telegraph detached communication from transportation for the first time in history. News, prices and war orders moved at wire speed; every network after it — telephone, internet — is this idea, amplified.

People

Samuel Morse

Threads

This event sits on Communication.

Related events

• 1858 – 1866

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  The Royal Road and the Persian courier system

  Darius I built a 2,700-km road from Susa to Sardis with relay stations; couriers on fresh horses carried messages faster than anything before.

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• 1876

  Bell patents the telephone

  Alexander Graham Bell's patent — hours ahead of a rival filing — turned the telegraph's clicks into the human voice over wire.

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Sources

• Encyclopædia Britannica — telegraph