What hath God wrought

Way back before bloggers, before Edison even, people were connected via vast network of telegraph relay stations who all spoke in a secret language called Morse Code.

Below is a picture of the paper tape recording the first message ever sent by telegraph by one Samuel Morse on May 24, 1844, saying, What hath God wrought.


Nine years later, the telegraph network had spread to all states east of the Mississippi (except Florida) and parts of Canada. 

Not until 1861 did telegraph lines connect the entire continent east to west, a technological union in the midst of the Civil War.

Morse had the best middle names I've ever heard "Finley Breese".  He was trained as an artist and was quite a good one too.

All at the splendid American Memory project from the Library of Congress.