What Happened in History?
Explore landmark events and cultural milestones throughout history — organized by year. Dates for earlier events may be approximate.
Note: Sources for the historical content shown, include research and reviews of relevant Online History Resources or printed material. When possible, we show a link to a source which provides additional or unique perspective about the event.
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Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail publicly demonstrate their telegraph system for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey, by sending a telegram across two miles of wire. Morse continued to improve the system as well as invented the Morse Code while trying to get financial backing.
The US Patent Office grants Samuel F. B. Morse U.S. Patent No. 1,647A for his electric telegraph. This invention, which utilized a single wire was a significant development which later led to the creation of the Morse Code and became known as the Morse telegraph.
Although the first known patent for a multiwire electric telegraph was granted to William F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in England in 1837, that system was a multiwire system and despite the earlier filing and other contemporaneous inventions, the US Supreme Court upheld Morse's patent claims in 1854 declaring him the "first and original inventor" of the electromagnetic telegraphs described in his patents.
Samuel Morse, inventor of the Telegraph sent the first official telegraph message fulfilling his $30,000 contract with the U.S. government. The text of the first Telegram from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore was "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT". More
The first transcontinental telegraph system is completed by Western Union, making it possible to transmit messages rapidly from coast to coast. This technological advance, pioneered by inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, heralded the end of the Pony Express. More
Guglielmo Marconi and his assistant, George Kemp, confirmed the reception of the first transatlantic radio signals from their test site in St. John, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
With a telephone receiver and a wire antenna kept aloft by a kite, they heard Morse code for the letter "S" transmitted from Poldhu, Cornwall, England. Their experiments showed that radio signals extended far beyond the horizon, giving radio a new global dimension for communication in the twentieth century. More
Guglielmo Marconi's company launched the first commercial transatlantic wireless service making long-distance communication faster and more accessible and breaking the monopoly of the undersea cable companies. The service connected Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and Clifden, Ireland and transmitted messages as "Marconigrams" using Morse code.
The messages were sent as radio waves, which were transmitted by a spark-gap transmitter and received as a series of "beeps" by a receiving operator who translated them back into text. The new service was an instant success, increasing the speed and decreasing the cost of transatlantic communication and laying the foundation for modern wireless technologies. On April, 1912 when the RMS Titanic sank four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. Marconi's Wireless service proved to be instrumental in helping with the rescue; Herbert Samuel, Britain’s postmaster-general, was quoted to have said during a court of inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic, “Those who have been saved, have been saved through one man, Mr. Marconi…and his marvelous invention.”
