Category Archives: Telegraph
Milestones in the History of Technology: Week of February 29, 2016
February 29, 1939 The klystron vacuum tube, the first significantly powerful source of radio waves in the microwave range, is set up at the Boston airport and a plane successfully blind-lands before a group of top military officials. The klystron, … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, Radar, Telegraph, Uncategorized, World Wide Web
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This Week In Tech History: Back To The Future
October 19, 1979 Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston release Visicalc, the first electronic spreadsheet and the first killer app for personal computers. October 20, 2010 The first World Statistics Day is celebrated. Here he comes big with Statistics, Troubled and … Continue reading
Meteorological Observations, the Telegraph, and Metcalfe’s Law
Today in 1870, the U.S. Weather Bureau made its first meteorological observations using 24 locations that provided reports via telegraph. For the first time, weather observations from distant points could be “rapidly” collected, plotted, and analyzed at one location. It’s … Continue reading
Posted in Big Data, Telegraph, This day in information
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Debugging the Origin of the Term “Bug”
Alexander Magoun and Paul Israel write in The Institute: The use of “bug” to describe a flaw in the design or operation of a technical system dates back to Thomas Edison. He coined the phrase 140 years ago to describe … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, Innovation, Telegraph
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Speech Transmission Over Wires Conceived
Today in 1875, during an experiment conducted by Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson, a receiver reed failed to respond to the intermittent current supplied by an electric battery. Bell told Watson, who was at the other end … Continue reading
Posted in Telegraph, Telephone, This day in information
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AP Launched
Today in 1846, The New York Sun carried the first dispatches from the Mexican War, marking the birth of the Associated Press. Moses Yale Beach (1800-68), publisher of The New York Sun, established a pony express to deliver news of the Mexican … Continue reading
“What Has God Wrought?”: A Love Story
Today in 1844, Samuel Morse sent the the message “What Has God Wrought” to officially open the first telegraph line, between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, launching an industry and ending a rocky journey that began with the 1837 resolution by the U.S. … Continue reading
International Telegraph Union (ITU) Established
Today in 1865, the first International Telegraph Convention was signed in Paris by the 20 founding members, and the International Telegraph Union (ITU) was established to facilitate subsequent amendments to this initial agreement. Today, the ITU is the leading United Nations agency … Continue reading
Big Data in the Age of the Telegraph
Caitlin Rosenthal writes in “Big Data in the Age of the Telegraph,” McKinsey Quarterly, March 2013: “In 1854, Daniel McCallum took charge of the operations of the New York and Erie Railroad. With nearly 500 miles of track, it was one of … Continue reading
The Story of Information 