Atelegram (Greek tele: distant and gramma: letter) is a written message transmitted over a distance. Acoustic, optical or electric signals are used to transmit the message. In the case of an electric transmission, the message was carried along wires, and the text written or printed and delivered by hand orteleprinter.
Claude Chappe invented and constructed the first optical telegraph in 1791. The Gaiss-Wenber telegraph was the first electric telegraph. Carl Friedrich Gauß and Wilhelm Eduard Weber constructed it in Göttingen, in 1833. In 1837,Samuel Morse invented theMorse code, which was also used for telegraphy.His code used dots and dashes, and the device he constructed could output the message on a paper strip. The first such line was constructed in 1844, and ran from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.
Telegrams were very widely used, because private telephones were not usual. Nowadays they are not useful because most people have privatetelephones and the use ofe-mail. The idea was developed by theBritishPost Office as a service for urgent letters.
The dictionary definition oftelegram at Wiktionary
