Where does this come from, and can I check it?

A line from Washington to Baltimore carried a short biblical line in May 1844. The figure is taken from Smithsonian Institution, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a history fact?

Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Morse sent the first public telegraph message

A line from Washington to Baltimore carried a short biblical line in May 1844 Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail built an electromagnetic telegraph and a code of dots and dashes for letters. In May 1844, Morse tapped a message from the Capitol to Baltimore along a railway line, and the words travelled in seconds. Within a decade wires crossed much of Europe and North America. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Smithsonian Institution

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Samuel Morse sent the first long-distance telegraph message in 1844The message What hath God wrought travelled over wires between Washington and Baltimore A submarine cable joined Europe and America in 1866Messages that once took ten days by ship now arrived in minutes Chappe's semaphore network spanned FranceMovable arms on hilltop towers carried messages faster than any rider The Penny Black was the first adhesive postage stampRowland Hill's flat rate penny post went on sale in May 1840 The electric telegraph was first deployed commercially along British railwaysWilliam Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone installed telegraph lines along track tracks in 1837 The 1859 solar storm set telegraphs alightA huge coronal mass ejection sent auroras as far south as the Caribbean

Tags: telegraph, morse, communication

Morse sent the first public telegraph message: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: A line from Washington to Baltimore carried a short biblical line in May 1844. The figure is taken from Smithsonian Institution, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a history fact?: Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.