April, 1746 -200 monks in Paris hold a wire that scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet connects to an early, primitive battary. All receive a powerful, electric shock!
1791 -In France, Claude Chappe and his brother use black and white panels to send visual messages over the tops of castles, buildings and towers built for message sending alone. A few hills in France are still known as "Telegraph Hill" for this reason. Chappe's friend names his mechanism the "telegraphe" or "far writer".
-Samuel B Morse is also born in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
January 23, 1805 -Chappe jumps into the well just outside the Telegraph Adminstration building in Paris and kills himself.
February 7, 1825 -Morse's first wife dies suddenly while he was away selling his paintings (his first career!) Because of the length of time it took mail to travel, Morse finds out about his wife's death the day before her funeral and arrives home nearly a week after her burial.
1820 -Scientific breakthrough when Hans Christian Oersted, Danish physicist, observes and notes electric currents flowing in wires creates a magnetic field; electromagnetism! (what is required of the electric telegraph)
1832 -William Morse catches the telegraph bug after hearing Dr. Charles Jackson explain electromagnetism while traveling across the Atlantic. Morse begins work on building an electric telegraph and is unaware that others have tried and failed.
1836 -In England, William Cooke learns about electromagnetism and envisions its telegraphic potential. He begins his own telegraphic inventions.
-Both Cooke and Morse soon find that short distance wires work while longer wires fail to transmit.
-Soon, Cooke is introduced to Professor Charles Wheatstone who has also been experimenting with telegraphy. Wheatstone has the long wires that Cooke needs and Cooke has a more advanced telegraphic machine. They form the beginning of an uneasy, tumultuous partnership.
December, 1842 -Morse receives his first grant from Congress ($30,000) to build an experimental larger-scale telegraph after a successful demonstration in Washington.
1843 -Morse sends successful telegraph messages underwater through the New York Harbor.
1844 -Cooke/Wheatstone telegraph begins growing in popularity in England after it is used to announce the birth of Queen Victoria's second son and catch several thieves and murderers!
1845 -Private enterprise is more interested in Morse's telegraph than the government. In May he decides to share patent rights and awards with Amos Kendall and creates the Magnetic Telegraph Company and begins building lines toward Philadelphia, Boston and toward the Mississippi.
-September -Cooke, in debt, sells his patent rights. The Electrical Telegraph Company is established in Britian.
By the early 1950s -Thousand of wire was being laid across the world. The telegraph had taken off and begins to experience great congestion as people begin to use it as a tool in the stock exchange and news industry.
November 1851 -First underwater message from London to Paris is sent.
August 5, 1858 -Cable landed for the first time connecting Europe to North America. It failed less than 1 month later.
July, 1865 -North America and Europe are successfully connected via underwater cable!
-International Telegraph Union is born and code use is ruled allowable after many years of trying to prevent code use and breaking proves unsuccessful.
1866 -Western Union, established nearly 15 years earlier, is considered the giant in the telegraph industry.
1869 -Thomas Edison (who started out as a messenger boy for the telegraph years earlier) gets his first big break and financial success NOT from inventing the phonograph and light bulb (which would come later), but from improving a telegraphic tool used strictly for the Stock Exchange called a "stock ticker."
Early 1870s -Almost 100,000 miles of undersea telegraph cables exist. Underwater and ground congestion of the wires is so prevalent that air compressed tubes and large electric display images have been created in an attempt to "assist" the telegraph.
-For decades now, hundreds of thousand of men and women have been employed as messenger boys and operators across the globe.
June 10, 1871 -A bronze statue of Samuel Morse is erected in Central Park in recognition and gratitude for his role as "Father of the Telegraph." Morse sends his final farewell telegraph out as the entire world "listens" and responds.
1872 -Telegraphy begins changing from a high-skill to low-skill occupation. Wheatstone and Edison invent machines that begin the change toward more automatic communication (the duplex and quadruplex, respectively).
1876 -Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell were both working on a "harmonic telegraph" at the same time. Bell would file first for the patent and receive the rights, though he did not make the breakthrough until weeks later, inventing the TELEPHONE.
1879 -Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and electricity use would flourish.
-The telephone takes over as the most cutting-edge form of technology and communication and telegraph was beginning to disappear...
