Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
19th-century demonstration of the semaphore. Credit for the first successful optical telegraph goes to the French engineer Claude Chappe and his brothers in 1792, who succeeded in covering France with a network of 556 stations stretching a total distance of 4,800 kilometres (3,000 mi).
The word telegraph (from Ancient Greek: τῆλε 'at a distance' and γράφειν 'to write') was coined by the French inventor of the semaphore telegraph, Claude Chappe, who also coined the word semaphore. [2] A telegraph is a device for transmitting and receiving messages over long distances, i.e., for telegraphy. The word telegraph alone ...
The Chappe telegraph was a French semaphore telegraph system invented by Claude Chappe in the early 1790s. The system was composed of towers placed every 5 to 15 kilometers. Coded messages were sent from tower to tower, with transmission being handled by tower operators using specially designed telescopes.
Today, in order to distinguish it from subsequent telegraph systems, the French name for Chappe's semaphore telegraph system is named after him, and thus is known as a Telegraph Chappe. [6] Alternatively, Chappe coined the phrase semaphore , [ 7 ] from the Greek elements σῆμα (sêma, "sign"); and from φορός (phorós, "carrying"), [ 8 ...
The first telegraph office November 14, 1845 report in New York Herald on telegraph lines coming into operation. 1 April 1845: First public telegraph office opens in Washington, D.C., under the control of the Postmaster-General. [4] The public now had to pay for messages, which were no longer free. [5]
Napoleonic semaphore line. In 1792 Claude Chappe, a clergyman from France, invented a terrestrial semaphore telegraph, which uses pivoted indicator arms and conveys information according to the direction the indicators point and was popular in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries.
1792 – Claude Chappe establishes the first long-distance semaphore telegraph line. 1831 – Joseph Henry proposes and builds an electric telegraph. 1836 – Samuel Morse develops the Morse code. 1843 – Samuel Morse builds the first long-distance electric telegraph line.
A replica of one of Claude Chappe's semaphore towers (optical telegraph) in Nalbach, Germany. The history of telecommunication began with the use of smoke signals and drums in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In the 1790s, the first fixed semaphore systems emerged in Europe.