May 20, 1836- Samuel Morse had the idea to invent a faster way of communicating. After receiving a slow horse message that his wife was gravely ill, he traveled across the country as quickly as he could only to learn that his wife passed away two days ago.

 

1837- Morse creates a partnership between Dr. Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail. These two men helped Morse significantly with the science behind the telegraph.

 

January 1838- Morse changes the telegraphic dictionary. Instead of using number codes to represent words, he made a code for every letter to reduce the chance of unwanted people decoding each word being transmitted.

 

February 1838- Morse demonstrates the telegraph to President Martin Van Buren and his cabinet.

 

1840- Morse is granted a United States patent for his telegraph.

 

1842- Experiments on underwater transmission are done by Samuel Morse and Dr. Gale. 

 

March 3, 1843- Congress votes to grant $30,000 for an experimental telegraph line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. 

 

May 24, 1844- Samuel Morse sends the first telegraphed message from the Supreme Court chamber in Washington, D.C., to the Railroad Depot in Baltimore, Maryland.

 

1845- First arrest by telegraph. John Tawell was found guilty of murdering his mistress and hanged.

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1846- The telegraph line is extended from Baltimore to Philadelphia. Different telegraph companies start to appear and Morse's patent rights are threatened. In an 1848 letter to a friend, Morse describes how he fought to be the sole inventor of the telegraph despite previous inventions:

"I have been so constantly under the necessity of watching the movements of the most unprincipled set of pirates I have ever known, that all my time has been occupied in defense, in putting evidence into something like legal shape that I am the inventor of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph! Would you have believed it ten years ago that a question could be raised on that subject?"

 

1851- Paul Julius Reuter, the German businessman, was one of the first to see potential in the Telegraph. His first business was in plugging a cross border gap in the telegraph that linked Germany and Belgium, using relay messages.

 

1964- Railroads used telegraphs a lot because they needed to be able to communicate instantly between far-flung stations.  Therefore, the telegraph allowed railroads to operate more effectively. Because of the railroads, American life improved as goods were being transported long distances, thus making more goods available to more people at a cheaper price.

 

1965- The first Internet system, ARPANET, was developed by using the science of the telegraph as a foundation.