Happy Birthday

Today is Samuel Morse's  222nd Birthday.

Morse built the first American telegraph around 1835.A telegraph sends electrical signals over a long distance, through wires.Morse patented a working telegraph machine in 1837, with help from his business partners Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail. Morse used a dots-and-spaces code for the letters of the alphabet and the numbers (Morse Code was later improved to use dots, dashes and spaces: for example E is dot, T is dash, A is dot-dash, N is dash-dot, O is dash-dash-dash, I is dot-dot, S is dot-dot-dot, etc.). By 1838, Morse could send 10 words per minute. Congress provided funds for building a telegraph line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, in 1843. Morse sent the first telegraphic message (from Washington D.C. to Baltimore) on May 24, 1844; the message was: "What hath God wrought?" The telegraph revolutionized long-distance communications.

Here is the International Morse code alphabet.

International Morse Code

  A   .-       U   ..-    
  B   -...     V   ...-   
  C   -.-.     W   .--    
  D   -..      X   -..-   
  E   .        Y   -.--   
               Z   --..   
  F   ..-.
  G   --.      0   -----  
  H   ....     1   .----  
  I   ..       2   ..---  
  J   .---     3   ...--  
               4   ....-  
  K   -.-      5   .....  
  L   .-..     6   -....  
  M   --       7   --...  
  N   -.       8   ---..  
  O   ---      9   ----.  

  P   .--.     Period      .-.-.-
  Q   --.-     Comma       --..--
  R   .-.      ? Mark      ..--..
  S   ...      Hyphen      -....-
  T   -        Apostrophe  .----.
               Colon       ---...
  U   ..-      Quotation   .-..-.
  V   ...-     Slash       -..-.
  W   .--      @ sign      .--.-.
  X   -..-
  Y   -.--
  Z   --..