27 апреля 1791 года родился Сэмюэл Морзе

From his childhood the son of a pastor from the American town of Charleston in Massachusetts was interested in drawing and got a visual arts education in England. He loved historical painting most of all but painted portraits to secure a living. He founded the National Academy of Design and became its first president. But it turned his fate waited for him on the ship he was returning on from his second trip to Europe. The fate took the form of a fellow traveler who talked about a newly invented electromagnet. “If the electric current can be made visible at both ends of the wire, then I see no reason why messages cannot be transmitted the same way,” said his random companion, being completely unaware of the consequences. And Morse took that thought seriously. And he came up with something. Both the device and a special code for the device, but not quite the one used to this day – that code has been improved since. In January 1838, as Morse experimented with a mock-up line at the New York University, he convinced those in attendance that the apparatus and code he invented were working. But the famous telegram with the Biblical phrase, “What hath God wrought,” was not sent until six years later when the U.S. Government finally made an appropriation and the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore was commissioned.

The electromagnetic apparatus and two inconspicuous characters did what was beyond the power of any real painting – they have made Morse’s name immortal. Two hundred years after his birth, when we say Morse we mean the code. Dot, dash, dot, dash...