Picture link: http://www.cybercollege.com/pix2/teleg.jpg

Picture: http://www.wrvmuseum.org/morsecode/images/samuel_morse.jpg

Samuel Morse, a Yale graduate and the son of a Calvinist preacher, invented the telegraph, off the basis of other discoveries. Morse code was named after him. He was a painter. He was on a journey on commission when his wife got fatally ill. By the time the postal service delivered the news, it was too late. By the time he got home, not only was his wife dead but she had been buried as well. This sparked Morse's determination to find a faster system of communication.

On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent his first ever telegram to Baltimore from Washington DC, 40 miles apart. His first message was "What hath God wrought?" This was the fastest form of communication. Although messages were usually very small, it was much quicker than the slow postal system. The news delivered was now new. This could be compared to modern text messaging, or telephone calls. Without the telegraph, we might never have the telephone.

The telegraph sends electric message in Morse Code.

For instance three short ones, three long ones, and three short ones, spells SOS.

Quoted: The telegraph key is simply a switch in an electric circuit that turns on an electric current. As the sender taps out a word the switch completes a circuit which allows an electric current to flow around it.

At the receiving end of the circuit the electric current can be used to provide power to an indicator dial or pointer machine (so the operator can watch the message coming in), to an electric 'sounder' or a buzzer (so the operator can hear the message) or to a device printing on paper tape (so the message can be stored and read later).