Teresa Yannotta, age 12, of Middlesex, N.J., for her question:
WHEN WAS THE MORSE CODE FIRST USED?
A young American artist named Samuel Finley Breese Morse was gaining a fine reputation in the 1820s as both an oil painter and sculptor. He won a number of major prizes and was hailed by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Then, in 1832 on a ship returning from Europe, he learned during a dinner conversation that electricity could move the length of a wire.
Samuel F. B. Morse, a successful artist, became obsessed with the idea of an electric telegraph.
On the staff of the University of the City of New York as a teacher of painting and sculpture, he used every bit of his spare money working on his telegraph idea.
Congress refused to give Morse support to test his telegraph in 1838, and none could be found in Europe. In 1837 he had demonstrated his telegraph, using wire that he had soldered from small lengths and had insulated by wrapping it with cotton thread. But he couldn't muster financial backing.
In 1842 Morse arranged for a dramatic demonstration. He had waterproofed two miles of wire with pitch, tar and rubber and had laid it underwater from the Battery to Governors Island. But just before the demonstration, a ship's anchor caught the wire. Sailors brought it to the surface and cut it. When it was time for the show, nothing happened.
In 1843, however, Morse was finally able to muster $30,000 from Congress and used the money to string a telegraph line from the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. On May 24, 1844, using the Morse code of dots and dashes, Samuel F.B. Morse tapped out this message:"What hath God wrought."
Within a dozen years, Morse and his telegraph and code were known throughout Europe and North America. He became very rich and famous.
The Morse code uses a system of dots and dashes, with the letters that occur most frequently having the simplest symbols. One dot is E, for example, while A is one dot and one dash. The letter I is two dots. For many years all telegraph messages and most news was transmitted in the code. Now, however, most messages are sent by automatic facsimile or printing telegraph machines.
A code called the International Morse Code is still used today to send some messages by short wave radio. Also called the International and Continental Code, the system of dots and dashes must be learned by all those who operate radio transmitter.
The telegraph operators of America honored Samuel F.B. Morse while he was still alive by placing a statue of him in New York's Central Park on June 10, 1871.