Telegram… This word can conjure up an image of a yellowed shabby piece of paper containing a message about some distant historical events that have little to do with the modern world. However, many of the ways we now use to communicate can be seen as direct descendants of telegrams.
Meaning of the word
In order to study the history and evolution of telegrams and human communication in general, one must start with the equipment used to send telegrams, the telegraph. Its name comes from the Greek language and translates as "I write at a distance." If you look at the meaning of this term in the explanatory dictionary, it will be written there that the telegraph is an apparatus for transmitting messages at a distance.
A bit of history
The method of transmitting information at a distance has been with us since people learned how to make fire. For example, beacons were lit on the towers of the Great Wall of China to warn of invaders. Yes, and in more difficult situations, fire was used. For example, in 150 BC. e. Greekthe historian Polybius invented an alphabetic system of signals through a pair of torches, but this method was not widely used.
Indeed, the 18th century had not yet ended, when the first network communication was born as a harbinger of the electric telegraph. Claude Chappe invented a system of semaphore relay stations that sent messages using movable rods placed on top of a tower. Like many technological innovations, his inventions were used primarily by the military. Napoleon, for example, used it to coordinate the movements of his armies.
In Russia, Pavel Schilling was a pioneer in the field of telegrams in Russian. It was he who in 1832 created the telegraph, which was introduced in the same year. And in the United States of America, the first telegram was sent by Morse, after whom the telegraphic alphabet was named. It happened in 1844.
Until 1852, Russia used an optical telegraph, which was distributed only along three lines, that is, it did not cover the entire territory. And in 1854, the electric telegraph had already completely supplanted its older brother. But they never said goodbye to optical: it is still used on the railway.
Appearance and content of the telegram
The first devices simply took the text and printed it on a thin tape, which was glued to the sheet. Then, already in the 80s, teletypes came to our world. They allowed to print the transmitted text directly on sheets of paper. Then you could senda congratulatory telegram is a sheet of text just pasted on a postcard.
What was reported via telegrams? Usually they were sent to announce something important, to announce a pleasant event or to bring tragic news, to congratulate on the holiday. Now, with the development of digital technologies, telegrams have lost their relevance.