Text: <MORSE CODE AND THE TELEGRAPH>
-Between the 1830s and 1840s, Samuel Morse, together with some other inventors, developed the telegraph and changed long- distance communication forever. The system worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. Moreover, they needed to develop a code that allowed the transmission of messages across telegraph lines. They also created a code that involved a set of dots (short marks) and dashes (long marks) for each letter of the English alphabet. Initially, the code was rendered as marks on a piece of paper when it was transmitted over the system. The telegraph operator would translate it into English. Later on, it became easier for the operators to hear and understand the code just by listening to the clicking of the receiver.
In 1844. Morse sent the first telegraph message from Washington to Baltimore. 22 years later, there was a telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean from the US to Europe. Accepted by people's eager for a faster and an easier way of communication, the telegraph spread across the world. It was the groundwork of the communications revolution, and it led to future innovations at the time.
The development of the telegraph changed how wars were fought and won and how newspapers worked. It would take weeks for pieces of news to be delivered by horse and carriage mail carts. Information spread much faster between telegraph stations. The telegraph also allowed money to be wired across distances affecting the economy.
When new technologies began to appear by the end of the 19th century, they overshadowed the telegraph and it fell out of widespread usage. The telegraph has been replaced by more convenient technological inventions such as the fax machine, the telephone and later the Internet. The Internet is still accepted as a turning point in the history of communication.
Here is an interesting fact for you: the internationally recognised distress signal, SOS does not stand for any words. The letters are just easier to transmit than the other letters in Morse code. "S" is three dots, and "O" is three dashes.
Questions:
1/Read the text again and answer the questions.
1. How did the telegraph work?
2. What is Morse code?
3. How did people spread information more quickly in 1944?
4. What happened to the telegraph by the end of the 19th century?
5. What does "SOS" stand for?
2/ Read the text again and mark the sentences as (T) True, (F) False and (NG) Not Given.
1. Samuel Morse helped invent the telegraph and develop a code that allowed messages to be transmitted between distances.
2. When the code was transmitted over the system, the operators managed to hear and understand the message quickly just by listening after a while.
3. Samuel Morse set up the telegraph system and tested it between Washington and Baltimore by sending a historic message.
4. The telephone was invented before the telegraph.
5. By 1940, there were 40 telegraph cables across the Atlantic Ocean.
