May 24 – Morse Code Day

nPostednon May 24, 2016

nWhennwe want to honor an inventor like Samuel Morse, or his or herninvention, do we honor his birthday? The anniversary of his death?nThe anniversary of an “ah-ha!” moment, or of the first successfulndemonstration of the invention, or of the patent?

nThentruth is, of course, that it depends on the inventor and theninvention. In some cases we have little information about exactlynwhen an inventor thought up an idea or tested a new gadget – but wencan clearly see the date of the patent. In some cases a group ofnpeople invented a device, rather than one person with a definitenbirthdate, and in other cases multiple people separately invented thensame thing.

nSonwhen I discovered that there are two different days called “MorsenCode Day” – and that neither is the anniversary of the first public demonstration of the telegraph – I got to wondering,n“Why that date?”

nOnenof the two Morse Code Days is April 27, which is the birthday ofntelegraph inventor Samuel Morse.

nThenother is today, May 24, which is the anniversary of the firstnofficial telegram.

SamuelnMorse and his partners, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, worked on thenprototype telegraph that was demonstrated in 1938. They also had tondevelop a code that could be used to transmit letters and numbers.nMorse studied the use of semaphore flags and optical codes – whichnassigned 3- or 4-digit numbers to various words – but Vail knewnthat such a system would be limited in what could be expressed andnwould be fairly difficult to translate from code to message. It wasnVail who put in the effort to study the frequency of use of the 26nletters in the English language. He assigned the shortest dot-dashncodes for the letters used most often, and longer codes for theninfrequently-used letters.

Itnwas perhaps even harder to convince Congress to fund the constructionnof the first telegraph line than it was to invent the device and thencode! Finally, in 1843, Morse convinced them, thanks to the lobbyingnof his former classmate and supporter Henry Ellsworth, and antelegraph line was built linking Washington, D.C., to Baltimore,nMaryland, a distance of about 40 miles. n

nInnorder to reward Ellsworth for his help with the skeptical Congress,nMorse decided to allow Ellsworth’s daughter to choose what the firstnofficial telegram would say. That’s how 17-year-old Annie Ellsworthnentered the story. She chose a short line from the Bible: “Whatnhath God wrought?”

nAndnit was on this date in 1844 that Morse, seated in the U.S. Capitol,ntapped out Annie’s message. Vail, sitting in a Baltimore railroadndepot, received the message just seconds later. By 1800s standards,nthat was INSTANT communication!

nThentelegraph was a success almost instantly, as well. Over the next fewnyears, private companies set up telegraph lines, and within a decadenmore than 20 thousand miles of telegraph wire had been strung in thenU.S. alone. And although Morse had to spend years in court fightingnfor recognition for his work and royalties for his inventions, hendied at age 80 a rich and famous man.

Ofncourse, almost instant coded communication via wire was eventuallynreplaced by non-coded vocal communication via wire (the telephone),nand then wireless communication (cell phones). Not to mention faxesnand email and text messaging and social media!

nWesternnUnion, one of the first and biggest telegraph companies, deliverednits last telegram in January of 2006.

nAlsonon this date: