How We Taught a Wire to Talk | The First Telegraph (Morse 1844)

In 1825, a painter working in Washington learned by letter that his wife had died, and by the time he got home she was already buried. Twenty years later, the same man sent a message forty miles in an instant. This is the story of the electric telegraph: Chappe's optical towers, Ørsted's needle, Joseph Henry's magnets, Cooke and Wheatstone's five-needle telegraph, Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail, the dot-and-dash code, how a key, a sounder and a relay actually work, "What hath God wrought" in 1844, the murderer caught by telegraph, the end of the Pony Express, and the Atlantic cable. Drawn as a living blueprint. CHAPTERS 0:00 A letter that came too late 0:33 Before the wire: horses, ships and Chappe's towers 1:07 Ørsted's needle and Henry's magnets 1:40 Cooke & Wheatstone: the five-needle telegraph 2:20 Samuel Morse, the painter 3:04 Dots and dashes: the code 3:43 How the telegraph works 4:28 $30,000 and a line that failed 5:10 24 May 1844: What hath God wrought 5:53 The Quaker caught by telegraph 6:36 Wires everywhere, and the end of the Pony Express 7:17 The Atlantic cable, 1858 and 1866 8:06 Next: the telephone Anecdotes are marked: the story of Vail counting type in a printer's shop is told as a story, not a documented fact; "the cords that hanged John Tawell" is the popular phrase of the time. Previous episode: The Solar Cell. Next episode: the telephone. Behind The First: the story behind the things we use. SOURCES Samuel F. B. Morse Papers (Library of Congress); IEEE Milestone: Demonstration of Practical Telegraphy, 1838 (ETHW); Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph (Wikipedia; Grace's Guide); The Telegraph 1843–1844 (Cornell University Library); John Tawell (Wikipedia; King's College London archives); Pony Express (National Park Service); Transatlantic telegraph cable (Wikipedia; atlantic-cable.com); National Geographic (Morse and Lucretia, 2016). IMAGE CREDITS (Wikimedia Commons) Samuel Morse 1840.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Alfred Vail.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Chappe telegraph-CnAM 14583-IMG 5213-white.jpg (CC BY-SA 3.0 fr) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Hans-christian-oersted-.jpg (CC BY-SA 4.0; cropped) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Joseph Henry-Smillie Photo-1874.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Cooke and Wheatstone electric telegraph.jpg (CC BY-SA 4.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Morse Code Receiver.jpg (CC BY-SA 4.0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... John Tawell (2).jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Pony Express Poster.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Cyrus W. Field MET ap92.10.41.jpg (CC0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Great Eastern 1866.jpg (Public domain) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Deck of the Great Eastern, the Cable Trough, etc., 1866 MET DP820957.jpg (CC0) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Music: original tracks by the channel. Narration: synthetic voice (Microsoft Azure neural TTS).