The telegraph was the first form of telecommunication. 'Telegraph' means 'writing from far away' or 'distant writing' and the word originally applied to semaphore systems.
But the search for ways of sending signals over long distances had been around for thousands of years.
The first telegraph systems were developed thousands of years ago.
They used many different ways of signalling: smoke, fiery beacon, drums, lights, mirrors, flags and ...
For thousands of years, people dreamed of being able to exchange messages further than they could see or hear. But this meant discovering something that would work independently of sight or sound.
When the electric telegraph finally arrived in the early 19th century, it was a real breakthrough.
It had needed three ingredients to make it reality: the science of ...
By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, many inventors had built simple electric telegraphs - but no one had managed to construct a working commercial system.
The first telegraphs were cumbersome and slow - but as the telegraphic age progressed the world started to move faster. More and more messages had to be sent - at greater speed and over longer distances.
The telegraphic age produced a new phenomenon - the wiring of a nation into a network. Wired networks are so much a part of life today that we hardly think about them - but the first telegraph wires seemed both alien ...
Being able to send messages by telegraph was all very well - theoretically. But why would you want to? Life in the 1840s still moved at the speed of the horse and carriage. There was one exception - the railway. They ...
By the 1850s, telegraph lines crossed Europe and spanned the United States. But there was a final frontier to cross - the ocean. In the mid 19th century, laying a cable under the sea required almost unimaginable levels ...
The First World War marked the peak of the telegraph era. Diplomatic telegrams sped Europe's slide into the abyss, cabled military orders triggered mass mobilisation and the knock of the telegram messenger forewarned ...