This Day in History: 1840-06-20

Samuel Morse is issued a patent for the magnetic telegraph on this day in 1840.  Morse’s system is a huge improvement over previous telegraphic systems, such as line-of sight signal towers (invented by Claude Chappe in the 1790s) or the six-wire Cooke & Wheatstone telegraph invented in the 1830s and already in use in London at this time.  The Morse telegraph solves a complicated hardware problem — sending signals through electric wires — with an elegant software solution, known today as Morse code.  Using the Morse system, only one wire was needed (since the return was grounded). Morse wanted his telegraph patents to be made public, just as photography had been made public by Louis Daguerre and the French government in 1839.  Instead, the technology moved in the opposite direction: the telegraph became an abusive monopoly under Western Union.