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Samuel Morse was born in 1791 in Charlestown (USA). When he was young his greatest interest was painting. He studied art in London. Then Samuel returned to America and opened a studio in Boston as a portrait painter.
In 1832 at the age of forty-one, far out in the Atlantic Ocean, on board the ship going from France to New York, he met a man who told Morse that electricity would move so fast that its speed could hardly be measured. Since then his entire life changed. Morse thought, if electricity could be found in any part of a wire, it could be used to send messages. Now art was a thing of the past. Morse began to work out a way to send messages. His energy and enthusiasm were concentrated on one thing — to make an instrument that could send messages to any part of the world.
Morse worked hard to make a.workable telegraph. With almost no knowledge of electricity he tried one thing after another. Then he had the idea of what a relay is called. It was an electric battery on the line adding more power to send the message further. By means of relays and batteries the first real telegraph was born. It was introduced to the public in January 1838. Morse also invented the short telegraphic sound (.) and long sound (—), known as Morse code. This is the alphabet still used in telegraph system today.
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