The End Of An Era

Jan 27 2006 STOP The end of an era STOP few notice STOP

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On May, 24, 1844 the first telegram ever was sent by Samuel L. Morse. Sent from Washington to Baltimore, the message read, "what hath God wrought."

Over the next few decades, telegraphs invented by Morse and his assistant, Alfred Vail, where deployed around the nation and around the world. The first Transatlantic Telegraph cable was succesfully completed on July 27, 1866.

In 1892, Thomas Edison was awarded a patent for the first two-way telegraph.

Fast forward through the next century. Telegrams were the primary means of non-verbal, instant communications across distances. Newspapers were named "telegram" and "telegraph." Foreign correspondents described the ravages of battle. Students off at college wired their parents with news of their safe arrival. Invitations were delivered, deals were struck, people fell in and out of love. Geographically distant cousins sent their best wishes to wedding parties they could not attend.

Telegrams were used to announce the first flight by the Wright Brothers in 1903 and the start of World War I. During World War II, the sight of a Western Union courier was dreaded because the War Department, the precursor to the Department of Defense, used the company to notify families of the death of their loved ones serving in the military.

Telegrams were always faster than letters.



Then, long-distance phone calls got cheaper. In what has to be the peak of irony, these calls became less expensive because of the breakup of a company with an initial that stood for "telegraph." I am talking about AT&T, which in an incarnation that stood firm for most of the 20th century, had the formal corporate name of American Telephone & Telegraph.

On January 27 2006, the first Internet fell silent forever. What was, at one time, considered the most cutting edge technology imagineable, has now been rendered obsolete. Imagine where we will be 62 years from now ...

RIP STOP

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