Samuel Morse sent the first successful long-distance telegraph message in 1844 using his code system.
On 24 May 1844, Morse transmitted the message “What hath God wrought” from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to Alfred Vail at a station in Baltimore. The event demonstrated that coded electrical signals could travel rapidly over a long wire.
Morse developed the telegraph with important assistance from Alfred Vail, who helped improve the apparatus and the code. The code became known as Morse code, although its original form differed in some details from the international version used later.
Morse was trained as a painter before becoming involved in telegraphy. The electric telegraph transformed news, business, diplomacy, and transportation because messages no longer had to move at the speed of a person, horse, or ship.