Electrical telegraph (nonfiction)

A printing electrical telegraph receiver, with transmitter key at bottom right.

An electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electrical signals, usually conveyed via dedicated telecommunication lines or radio.

The electrical telegraph, or more commonly just telegraph, becoming the first form of electrical telecommunications, superseding optical semaphore telegraph systems.

In a matter of decades after their creation in the 1830's, electrical telegraph networks permitted people and commerce to transmit messages across both continents and oceans almost instantly, with widespread social and economic impacts.

On August 20, 1911, the first cable message sent around the world from the U.S. by commercial telegraph was transmitted from New York City. It read “This message sent around the world,” left the New York Times building at 7:00 pm and was received at 7:16 pm after travelling nearly 29,000 miles through 16 relays via the Azores, Gibraltar, India, Phillipines, Midway, Guam, Hawaii and San Francisco.

In the News

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  June 20, 1840: Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph.

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicle

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Electricity (nonfiction)
• Telephone switchboard (nonfiction)

External links:

• Electrical telegraph @ Wikipedia