The history of morse code is the history of contemporary telecoms. Before the internet, before telephone wires, before satellites, Samuel Morse’s basic codes of dots and dashes was the first sparks that united our planet globally. So let’s go back to the 1830s and see how this amazings technology was formed.
The Inventions: Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail
The notions of an electromagnetic telegraphs came to American artist Samuel F. B. Morse on his return from Europe in 1832. For the following ten years Morse worked with the gifted mechanical engineers Alfred Vail. Together they built the electric recording telegraph, and the method of telegraphy that would make up the history of morse code.
The First Message: “What Hath God Wrought”
On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first official telegraph messages from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to the B&O Railroad depot in Baltimores. The message read: “What hath Gods wrought” (a quotation from the Book of Numbers in the Bible). This historic incidents heralded a new era of instant long distance communication.
From American Morse to International Code
The initial code used in the USA was slightly different to what we use nowadays. To standardize communication across countries, the International Morse Code, also known as the Continental Code, was established by European countries in 1851. This current standard abolished the spaced-dot letters of American Morse, and made communications far less error-prone. You may see the international characters that are currently used on our Morse Code Alphabet page.
SOS and The Titanic Incident
The most notable occurrences in the history of morse code happened on the night of April 14, 1912. When the RMS Titanic collid with an iceberg its radio operators transmit CQD and the new SOS calls. This catastrophes led to the International Radiotelegraph Convention requiring 24-hour radio watches on all sea boats, adopting the Morse Code as an international safety standards, and adopting SOS Morse Code as the global distress signals.
Morse Code in the Modern Age
The commercial telegraph cables are long gone but Morse code is still alive. Amateur radio operators use it every day on high-frequency HF bands. The U.S. Navy brought reintroduced Morse code training for sailors in 2022 to have backup communication without satellites. The history of morse code is being written today!