The first message in Morse code was tapped out in the United States over a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington by Samuel Morse in 1844.
Morse is often credited with the invention of the telegraph on his return to the United States from a trip to Europe in 1832. During this trip he became acquainted with the works of Michael Faraday on electro-magnetism, which forms the basis of the telegraph. This gave Morse the necessary impetus to go ahead with his work.
In 1837 Morse exhibited his first truly successful telegraph instrument. By 1838 he had developed the Morse code, an alphabet which consists of dots and dashes representing letters and numbers. In the same year he attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Congress to build a telegraph line.
It was not until 1843 that Congress voted to pay Morse to build the first telegraph line in the United States from Baltimore to Washington. In the following year Morse sent his famous message- “what hath God wrought?” – On this line.
Later, Morse was caught in a mass of legal claims among his telegraph partners and rival inventors. He was probably the most successful propagator of the telegraph, although there were many pioneers in the same field long before him.
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