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Speaker 1: No, did you ever have to learn Morse code? No? God,

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Speaker 1: that was not a very interesting responsible Let me make

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Speaker 1: something up. Yeah, totally. When I was in cub Scouts

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Speaker 1: and we went on a camping trip into the wilderness,

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Speaker 1: so we had to want how to communicate by tapping

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Speaker 1: our trees bark. Well. When I was back in Boy Scouts,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that our troop leaders continually needled

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Speaker 1: me about. They're always like, Ben, You're good at knots,

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Speaker 1: you can find your way around in the woods, but you, uh,

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Speaker 1: you gotta learn Morse code, buddy. It's just it's been

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Speaker 1: too long, you know what I mean. You're eleven, now

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Speaker 1: it's getting real. You've got to learn Morse code. And

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Speaker 1: so eventually I learned Morse code, passed the test with it,

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Speaker 1: and then promptly forgot it. Yeah. When you turn eleven,

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Speaker 1: you get your first big boy bike and you learn

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Speaker 1: Morse code, right right. And that's for late bloomers, uh,

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Speaker 1: not for early adopters like our super producer Casey Pegrum.

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Speaker 1: Give him a hand, folks. Today's episode is about Morse code,

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Speaker 1: but more importantly, it's about the man himself, the Morseman.

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Speaker 1: The Morseman. Not to be confused with some sort of norseman. No, no,

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Speaker 1: that's a hard and yeah. Yeah, the man, the myth,

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Speaker 1: the Morseman, the Morseman, Samuel Morseman morse So Samuel morse

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Speaker 1: born April today. He is remembered primarily for the code

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Speaker 1: system that bears his name, Morse Code. And everyone knows

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Speaker 1: what that is. Casey, can we get just the little

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Speaker 1: clip of how that would sound? There? You go perfect,

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Speaker 1: So like a series of short beeps and then long ones.

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Speaker 1: And if you're really good at it, you can do it.

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Speaker 1: You know, I would do it more like dot dot

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Speaker 1: dash dot dot dat. But if you're really good and

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Speaker 1: you can work one of those little flipper paddle button

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Speaker 1: things you know that you see in the old movies,

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Speaker 1: you'd be pretty brett baby bree b ba ba by

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Speaker 1: by know. I mean, like that's more a code a telegraph, yeah, telegraph,

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Speaker 1: which he's also credited with. He didn't really invent it exactly,

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Speaker 1: but he improved upon a previous design and made it

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Speaker 1: much more useful in relaying information more or less instantaneously. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the thing. So most inventions that we think of

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Speaker 1: as the the huge game changing innovations. Most of those

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Speaker 1: are not going to be made up by one person

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Speaker 1: working in isolation. You know what I mean. Multiple people

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Speaker 1: exhibit parallel thinking. It's a phrase you enjoy, or you know,

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Speaker 1: the whole idea of standing on the shoulders of giants

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Speaker 1: and all that and improving, piggybacking on something that has

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Speaker 1: come before and making it better, making it suit the times. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's correct. He he eventually improved, as he said, on

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Speaker 1: this existing telegraph technology, famously sending the first telegraph message

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Speaker 1: on May. But between his first day on the planet

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Speaker 1: and that moment where he sends the first telegraph message,

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff happened, and not all of it

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Speaker 1: was particularly pleasant. In fact, we could say that without

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Speaker 1: great personal tragedy, Morse code may not have ever come

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Speaker 1: to be. And now and that first telegraph messages that

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Speaker 1: more sent a little heavy, and then it's, uh, what

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Speaker 1: hath god roch? That sounds sinister to me? I like it.

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Speaker 1: It's better than ahoihoi, that's truehoihoi, which was what famously

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Speaker 1: Mr Burns sent on the first ever telephone call, right

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Speaker 1: right so before Samuel Morse was known for his inventions,

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Speaker 1: Way back when Morse was just a regular surname. This

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Speaker 1: guy had a completely different job, didn't he He did.

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Speaker 1: He went to Yale um and when he graduated was

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Speaker 1: his degree in ben Did you catch that well? He

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Speaker 1: studied several different things. He studied religious philosophy, mathematics, and

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Speaker 1: equestrian science, which is so interesting because he went into

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Speaker 1: none of those fields. Upon graduating from Yale, he became

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Speaker 1: a quite well regarded portrait painter. And a piece that

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Speaker 1: he did I was not aware of this at all.

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Speaker 1: His work is pretty breathtaking. He has one piece called

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Speaker 1: Dying Hercules that has that kind of Caravaggio esque look

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Speaker 1: of like some of the Italian masters, like real charge

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Speaker 1: scuro lighting Like this dude is heavily ripped, massive pectorals

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Speaker 1: and eight pack kind of back in the throw of agony,

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Speaker 1: leaning up against some rocks. Hercules um holding up this

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Speaker 1: kind of like sheet as though or like a wing.

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Speaker 1: And it's really breathtaking epics stuff. And he received some

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Speaker 1: note from that work, and um got some really pretty

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Speaker 1: big name commissions as a painter. It's interesting because this

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Speaker 1: was a masterpiece early in his life. It's typically called

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Speaker 1: his early masterpiece. And just a side note, he did

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Speaker 1: a sculpture of this first, and he based the painting

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Speaker 1: on that sculpture. I didn't know that. That's pretty weird, right,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of that technique, but I assume it's

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Speaker 1: a common thing because this guy was a big deal painter.

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Speaker 1: He ended up attracting the attention of notable artists at

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Speaker 1: the time, such as Washington Allston, who wanted him to

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Speaker 1: meet another artist named Benjamin West and along with Morse's father,

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Speaker 1: Alston arranged for Morse to stay in England for three

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Speaker 1: years to study painting, and eventually, by the end of

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Speaker 1: eighteen eleven he is admitted to the Royal Academy and

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Speaker 1: this is where he began producing things like dying hercules.

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Speaker 1: He has some portraits that are in the National Portrait

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Speaker 1: Gallery now, including a self portrait. Yeah, and I believe

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Speaker 1: he did one of James Madison as well, and he

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Speaker 1: was commissioned to paint a portrait of the Marquis de

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Speaker 1: Lafayette UH in Washington in February of eighteen twenty five.

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Speaker 1: Oh he also did John Adams and James Monroe UM

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Speaker 1: and that was when unfortunately, tragically, his wife Lucretia fell

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Speaker 1: deathly ill yes, she fell ill just a month after

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Speaker 1: giving birth to their third child, and she was located

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Speaker 1: in new Haven, Connecticut, and he was in Washington in

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Speaker 1: February of painting that portrait. So he dropped everything, ran

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Speaker 1: ran back to New Haven as quickly as he could. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: he was too late, and his wife passed at the

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Speaker 1: young age of twenty five on February. And at this

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Speaker 1: point the only way that he could receive notice of

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Speaker 1: this would be through a written correspondence, a letter through

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Speaker 1: the post, or word of mouth, or maybe somebody sending

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Speaker 1: a corrier, you know what I mean. And yes, a

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Speaker 1: corvey courier. So his father sent him a letter about

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Speaker 1: his wife's illness, and Morse did not receive this letter

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Speaker 1: for several days. He wrote to his wife two days

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Speaker 1: after she had died, unaware that she had passed from

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Speaker 1: this earth, and he was talking to her about the

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Speaker 1: election of John Quincy Adams as president, his meeting with Lafayette,

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Speaker 1: and then by the time he returned to New Haven,

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Speaker 1: several days had passed since her burial. What would have

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Speaker 1: been from Washington, d c. To New Haven, Connecticut in

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Speaker 1: those days, which would have been by train, how would

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Speaker 1: you have traveled. I wonder, it's an interesting questions. So

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Speaker 1: the distance, if you're talking just a straight flight, the

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Speaker 1: distance would be about two seventy three miles or fokos

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Speaker 1: for you know, the rest of the world. So just

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Speaker 1: for perspective, if someone were traveling on a train today

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Speaker 1: on Amtrak, for instance, how how long would that journey take?

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Speaker 1: I think only about five and a half hours or so,

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Speaker 1: which kind of threw me because at first I when

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Speaker 1: I read this, I misread and thought that he was

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Speaker 1: much further away because he had spent a lot of

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Speaker 1: time overseas, but he was in fact not that far,

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Speaker 1: but still just the same, he needed the information instantly,

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Speaker 1: and that is what led him to decide he needed

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Speaker 1: to devise a way of doing this so other people

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have to experience what he experienced, because he wrote

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Speaker 1: a letter to his daughter after the pasting of his

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Speaker 1: wife that was just really heartbreaking to read. Right, he said,

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Speaker 1: you cannot know the depth of the wound that was

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Speaker 1: inflicted when I was deprived of your dear mother, nor

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Speaker 1: in how many ways that wound has been kept open.

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Speaker 1: And when he learned of their death, he vowed to

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Speaker 1: find some way to deliver important messages in a timely manner.

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Speaker 1: And he would spend the next two decades perfecting this system.

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Speaker 1: He didn't give up the art right away, but he

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Speaker 1: continued kind of tinkering away at this side hustle. At

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Speaker 1: the same time. Um, and it was an eight thirty

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Speaker 1: two and he was on another voyage, a sea voyage

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Speaker 1: to Europe. For from Europe rather back to the United States,

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Speaker 1: that he met a very important gentleman for the evolution

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Speaker 1: of what would be his kind of crowning achievement. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Charles Thomas Jackson, Boston physician and scientists. And Jackson says

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Speaker 1: to Morse, hey, check out this electromagnet I made. He

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Speaker 1: had a rudimentary electromagnet, and Morse was inspired. And Morse thought,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I what if I could send a

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Speaker 1: message along a wire by opening and closing an electrical circuit,

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Speaker 1: and then an electro magnet could record these uh blips

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Speaker 1: on a piece of paper via some sort of dare

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Speaker 1: I say a code? And yeah, right, And this is

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Speaker 1: one of those I don't know at first, it's like

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Speaker 1: a a cocktail napkin idea. You know, he's he's still

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Speaker 1: what ifing to himself. But when he goes back to

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Speaker 1: the US, when he disembarks from the trip, he moves

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Speaker 1: forward with the idea and he meets another guy who

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Speaker 1: works with electromagnets, a fellow named Joseph Henry. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: Joseph Henry was also working with the idea of electromagnetism,

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Speaker 1: which is just quick and dirty. I'm no magnet scientists,

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Speaker 1: but it is the idea of passing electric current into

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Speaker 1: a magnet that turns on and off its magnetic abilities. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I'm not a magnet doctor either, but I

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Speaker 1: like that phrase. But yeah, that's that's the basic gist.

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Speaker 1: At this time, Morse still doesn't absolutely understand the nuts

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Speaker 1: and bolts of how electromagnetism works. And it is Henry

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Speaker 1: who explains the phenomenon of electromagnetism to Morse, and he

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Speaker 1: also shows him the experimental electromagnets that he has built.

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Speaker 1: And if you look at the electromagnets Morse later goes

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Speaker 1: on to use, and the experimental ones that Joseph Henry

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Speaker 1: aided there obviously the same design. He's um, well, you

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Speaker 1: don't want to call it plagiarism, but he's riffing, well,

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Speaker 1: but he did sue, I believe, yeah, yeah, later he

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Speaker 1: did so and said, hey, that's my idea. You can

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Speaker 1: you can read some of this, by the way, in

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Speaker 1: a fantastic Smithsonian article called How Samuel Morse Got His

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Speaker 1: Big Idea by Joseph Stromberg, and the Smithsonian has written

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Speaker 1: a couple of things about the story of Morse because

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Speaker 1: I don't remember if we mentioned this on air yet.

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Speaker 1: Joseph Henry would later go on to become the first

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Speaker 1: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, So they have a little

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Speaker 1: bit of steak in the game here story wise. So

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Speaker 1: before he gets sued, Morse and Henry are are pretty

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Speaker 1: good buds. They're having interesting conversations. Morse goes back to

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Speaker 1: his home, which is now in New York, and in

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven he creates his first telegraph receiver. It's

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Speaker 1: like I said, is kind of that that thing you

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Speaker 1: see in some of these old the old pictures where

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Speaker 1: it's like a button do you exactly on a spring

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Speaker 1: and that colopens incloses the circuit to the decay. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: when you do the taps, that's right, um, And that

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Speaker 1: is pretty much what it looked like. And it got

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Speaker 1: sort of streamlined over time and you can actually see

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Speaker 1: this first ever versions prototype today at the American History Museum.

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Speaker 1: And according to Harold Wallace, the curator of the American

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Speaker 1: History Museum, the most interesting aspect of this is that

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Speaker 1: he took an artist canvas stretcher and made it into

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Speaker 1: a telegraph receiver. A canvas stretcher is what you used

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Speaker 1: to to stretch the canvas over a frame and a

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Speaker 1: fix it. So he was kind of given props to

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Speaker 1: his old arts roots and to Wallace, this is symbolic

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Speaker 1: of a shift from painter to telegrapher, all in one piece,

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Speaker 1: one artifact. That's pretty cool, somewhat poetic. Right. So now

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Speaker 1: he theoretically has a way to record these signal and

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Speaker 1: he has to figure out how to transmit them. Right.

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Speaker 1: He builds a receiver first, but he doesn't build a

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Speaker 1: way to transmit it. So was the infrastructure already in

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Speaker 1: place for this, because I mean this is obviously pre telephone, right,

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Speaker 1: He had to work with some other people and this

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Speaker 1: is where his colleagues Leonard Gail and Alfred Vail come

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Speaker 1: into play. Over the next few years. After building this receiver, Morse,

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Speaker 1: still a man on a mission, works to improve this system,

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Speaker 1: and he uses veils, transmitter key, and a code of

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Speaker 1: thoughts and dashes. This would be what becomes known as

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Speaker 1: Morse code. And initially people said, okay, it could be

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Speaker 1: potentially useful, but they had a hard time getting investors

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Speaker 1: because of the infrastructure problem that you alluded to earlier.

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Speaker 1: There's not a pre existing UH network of miles and

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Speaker 1: miles and miles of wire. You would have to build

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Speaker 1: it to send that signal. And that's something that we

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Speaker 1: see with a lot of technology. One of the things

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Speaker 1: people are talking about today with autonomous vehicles is how

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Speaker 1: do you build a system in which they can exist?

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Speaker 1: That's right, and so in the same way that we're

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Speaker 1: doing small scale tests about times vehicles UH in private

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Speaker 1: in these private companies and then gradually doing road tests,

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Speaker 1: some of which have spectacularly failed. Um, they did that

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Speaker 1: very thing to demonstrate to potential investors that this technology

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Speaker 1: did work using short runs of wires instead of the

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Speaker 1: kind that would have been strung miles and miles apart

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Speaker 1: to make the technology actually useful across long distances. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a part of the story that I found endearing.

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Speaker 1: They turned to Uncle Sam and they asked the US

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Speaker 1: government for some scratch, some cheddar, some sweet sweet telegraph

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Speaker 1: money just to construct this network, to lay these lines,

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Speaker 1: to make this wire stuff happen. And the way that

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Speaker 1: they convinced the government to fund it was through this

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Speaker 1: sort of science fair pro They did a live demonstration

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Speaker 1: within the capital and they strove wires up just between

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Speaker 1: different rooms. You know what makes me think of um,

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Speaker 1: there's a part in the new Red Dead Redemption game

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Speaker 1: where the character you play, the cowboy I can't remember

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Speaker 1: his names for some reason now, Arthur Morrigan, Arthur Morgan.

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Speaker 1: Great game if you haven't played it. He happens upon

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Speaker 1: an inventor who has these remote control boats that are

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Speaker 1: like little battleship kind of things that can like, you know,

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Speaker 1: shooting missiles. And it's the whole idea is that he

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Speaker 1: wants to get investors, and he um rounds up rich

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Speaker 1: people that are like walking around in the city that

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Speaker 1: you're in to come and check out him using this

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Speaker 1: wireless technology. And that was sort of a time. It

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Speaker 1: was at the same time around the late eighteen hundreds

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Speaker 1: or mid eighteen hundreds, and it was a time of

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Speaker 1: that kind of ingenuity when people were so far ahead

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Speaker 1: of like what investors were willing to put their money toward.

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Speaker 1: You had to really wow them with some kind of

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Speaker 1: display that they was unequivocally a thing that was going

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Speaker 1: to work and that was worth their money. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: so they put some cash behind it. They gave Morse

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Speaker 1: and Co. Thirty thousand dollars to build a thirty eight

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Speaker 1: mile wire line from Baltimore, Maryland, to Washington, D C.

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Speaker 1: And then on May one, should we inflation calculate that?

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Speaker 1: Of course, whenever we can, we should. I'm gonna guess

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Speaker 1: one million dollars. So let's say, just for the sake

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Speaker 1: of argument, and say eighteen forties dollars. And we said,

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Speaker 1: what was that? Thirty thousand? Okay, so thirty thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen forties would be equal to what did

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Speaker 1: you guess? One million dollars? Dude? You really close. It's

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Speaker 1: nine hundred and eighty thousand, thousand, four and eighty dollars.

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Speaker 1: What do I win? Piece of mind? I'll take it, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I need it, Yeah, I be. I'm sure we have

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Speaker 1: a T shirt somewhere, a ridiculous history t shirt. I'm

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Speaker 1: not gonna be one of those guys. In the band

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Speaker 1: wearing their own shirt. That's embarrassing. I would wear a

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Speaker 1: Casey on the Case shirt. Oh, I absolutely Well that's

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Speaker 1: different though, that that represents the good Mr Mr Pegram,

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Speaker 1: not our own. Do we talk about this on air?

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Speaker 1: I pitched Casey on getting a T shirt with just

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Speaker 1: his face on it. You were against that, right, yeah?

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Speaker 1: I think so. I'm gonna say no to that one

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Speaker 1: man Casey on the Sad Sad Case. Well, you know what, Hey,

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Speaker 1: how about this, listeners? You guys speak up, let us know,

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Speaker 1: demand it, Demand Casey's face on a T shirt and

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Speaker 1: then we'll see if he changes his tune. Oh We're

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Speaker 1: gonna be in deep trouble on that one. Huh so.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah. So they strung up the line, Yeah, probably

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Speaker 1: along a similar route as there would have been a

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Speaker 1: train travel. I imagine that would make sense, right, that's

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Speaker 1: a good point. It really gets national attention when the

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Speaker 1: device is used by the Wig Party to telegraph their

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Speaker 1: presidential nomineetion from Baltiware, Maryland, to Washington, d C. Much

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Speaker 1: much faster than an ordinary courier could have traveled. And

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Speaker 1: people say, holy smokes, building this wires is real pain.

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Speaker 1: Once you have the wire up. This is very useful. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and it makes me think of those barbed wire

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Speaker 1: telephone networks because all you need is a conductive material.

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Speaker 1: There's something special about it just has to travel from

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Speaker 1: point A to point B and it can transmit those messages.

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Speaker 1: And it's so cool because I mean, it makes sense,

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Speaker 1: but I I just wasn't thinking about it in these terms.

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Speaker 1: You know, in my head, the invention of the telegraph

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Speaker 1: was so far removed from the invention of the telephone.

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Speaker 1: But that's how technology works when you're building on the

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Speaker 1: work of others. Antonio mucci Um, who was an Italian immigrant,

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Speaker 1: started developing what was referred to as the talking telegraph

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Speaker 1: as early as eighteen forty nine. We see the concurrence,

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Speaker 1: or the confluence rather of these similar technologies and then

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Speaker 1: the speaking of your parallel thinking. The Italian gentleman I

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Speaker 1: just mentioned came up with his design completely independently of

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Speaker 1: Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with the invention. So

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Speaker 1: it just goes to show like it's totally a thing

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Speaker 1: that happens. It's first to the patent office. Sometimes that's

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Speaker 1: the way it works, right. So Morse has finally achieved

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Speaker 1: his mission, and almost twenty years later, years later, he

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Speaker 1: has not put his tragedy to rest, but he has

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Speaker 1: made something positive in the world from this terrible personal catastrophe.

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Speaker 1: And that brings us to the question that we have

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Speaker 1: to ask, would Morse code or with the telegraph have

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Speaker 1: existed without this man on personal mission. The answer is yes,

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Speaker 1: it just wouldn't be Morse code. We've been throwing around

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Speaker 1: the phrase Morse code, and we said, there are dots

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Speaker 1: and dashes, what exactly is Morse code? It changed a

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Speaker 1: little over time, right, It did change a little bit

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Speaker 1: over time, because, like we said, you know, he had

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Speaker 1: this invention that he had worked with these other inventors

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Speaker 1: to achieve, including Alfred Vale, who invented his contribution to

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Speaker 1: the device, which was the telegraph key, which is literally

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Speaker 1: that little button that we've been talking about that allows

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Speaker 1: you to like enter in the code. But Morse himself

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Speaker 1: was credited with coming up with a system of dots

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Speaker 1: as in a short beep and then I'm along beep

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Speaker 1: beep versus beep and with those it's sort of like

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Speaker 1: a brail alphabet, but for your ears instead of your fingers,

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Speaker 1: right right, And he created this code with some inspiration

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Speaker 1: from earlier attempts to communicate even just line of sight

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Speaker 1: over distance through visual cues, you know, semaphore kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yet a controversy exists. If you look at International Morse

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Speaker 1: Code now we still call it Morse code, you'll see

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Speaker 1: that that fairly easy to grock system dots and dashes

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Speaker 1: or ditson oz as it's referred to in the parlance

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Speaker 1: of Morris Coterie. Yes, and I like the phrase Coderie. However,

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Speaker 1: many scholars will tell you that Morse code is misnamed

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Speaker 1: and it should actually be called Veil code. Uh, due

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Speaker 1: to the contributions of Alfred Vale, who collaborated with Samuel Morse.

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Speaker 1: So many scholars will say that Veil, as a collaborator,

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Speaker 1: was the generative force behind what we call Morse code. However,

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Speaker 1: people who say that Morse invented it himself will point

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Speaker 1: out that Veil, in public and private, never claimed he

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Speaker 1: invented the code, and he credited Samuel Morse with the

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Speaker 1: creation of the code in different private correspondence. So if

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Speaker 1: you want to be a revolutionary academic, you can. You

356
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Speaker 1: can argue the Veil side of it. It's just many

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Speaker 1: people attribute Morse code to Samuel Morse including Alfred Vale. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I actually have the mis conception that UM Morse

359
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Speaker 1: code was sort of the way you would enter in

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Speaker 1: letters alpha numerically, like in a telephone where you know

361
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Speaker 1: each however many you know A is one, dot, B

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Speaker 1: is two, C is three. But if you think about

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Speaker 1: it in a whole sentence, if you keep things in

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Speaker 1: one letter at a time like that, it would take

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Speaker 1: ages to communicate any meaningful information. Right, So there's a

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Speaker 1: whole another system that makes Morse code UM efficient and

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Speaker 1: able to have high words per minute counts, which is

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Speaker 1: how Morse code transmissions are measured. But I have to say, Ben,

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Speaker 1: even after reading into this stuff, maybe I'm being a

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Speaker 1: little dense here, I still don't fully get like how

371
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Speaker 1: the code works. Because if an S is an s

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Speaker 1: O S is three dits uh and O is three

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Speaker 1: DAWs and asks three dits how how how does that

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Speaker 1: relate to other letters? Or is it phrase based? Like?

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Speaker 1: Maybe you can explain so think of it in terms

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Speaker 1: of units. So a dit or dot give it as

377
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: one unit almost like music, okay, and a dash is

378
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Speaker 1: three units, so dot and then a dashes got it

379
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Speaker 1: for lack of a better vocal que. The space between

380
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Speaker 1: parts of the same letter would be one unit, so

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00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 1: there's one dits space between these dits and these DAWs,

382
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Speaker 1: And the space between separate letters is three units, so

383
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Speaker 1: there's a three unit space between every letter that you

384
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Speaker 1: send out. So in an S O S, you would

385
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 1: have that dit dit and then a space for the

386
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Speaker 1: span of three other dits. So people would say, Okay,

387
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Speaker 1: that's stopped, that's an S and then what was that?

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Speaker 1: Why On telegrams they say stop now, I'm sorry, keep going.

389
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Speaker 1: But the the the space between words would be seven units,

390
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:59,399
Speaker 1: so they're they're counting not just the dits or the DAWs,

391
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:03,360
Speaker 1: but they're counting the absence of those and they can

392
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Speaker 1: figure out from the spaces between letters or words what

393
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 1: a phrase is supposed to be. I see. And also

394
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this chart of the alphabet and the

395
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: number system one through ten or one through nine and zero.

396
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 1: It's a little easier than you might think. A is dit,

397
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: D B is dot dit C is do dit? I

398
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 1: like saying don did it's fun D is dot E

399
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: is just one dit F is dit And going back

400
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: to your question, why is it not a dit for

401
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: one for two for three, I feel like it beats

402
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 1: about to drop, but one is actually did da da

403
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: da da seems long for one? It does? And what

404
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: we're talking about right now, this this code that we're

405
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:52,120
Speaker 1: reading back to you is what became known as International

406
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 1: Morris Code and it was adopted by the international community

407
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:59,639
Speaker 1: because incorporated the Latin alphabet with some extra Latin letters

408
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: and also Arabic numerals and some punctuation and some other

409
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: symbols that were not accounted for in Morse's original code.

410
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:11,919
Speaker 1: So over time Morse's basis for Morse Code got phased

411
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: out and it actually ended up not even being the

412
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: original Morse code that Morris created that kind of took

413
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: hold and got adopted by the international community. It was

414
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 1: this International Morse Code that was developed by Frederick Clemens Girk,

415
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 1: who was a German writer and journalist and also someone

416
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,919
Speaker 1: that was very interested in telegraphy, and he revised that

417
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 1: Morse code to make it make more sense, include more

418
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: necessary characters that could be adopted more widely. Yeah, so

419
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: ten years after that first telegraph line opens in eighty four,

420
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Speaker 1: there were over twenty three thousand miles of line or

421
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:53,959
Speaker 1: wire crossing the continent, and it hit a watershed moment

422
00:26:54,160 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: as various businesses that required quick long distance communication gandy

423
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,719
Speaker 1: use telegraph systems. Railroad companies were one of the first

424
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: to the plate there they would use it to communicate

425
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: between their stations, and these telegraph companies began to pop

426
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: up everywhere that you could imagine. While this was happening,

427
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:19,199
Speaker 1: countries in Europe were developing their own system of Morse code.

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00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 1: And the code used in America was called American Morse

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00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: Code or Railroad Morse, and the code used in Europe

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00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: was called Continental Morse. And so that's when that's when

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00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 1: they realized they need to standardize this stuff, as you

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00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: pointed out, with something that everyone can agree on. And

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00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 1: one of the things that brought this need for an

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00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 1: international code to public attention was the use of radio communication,

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00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: invented in the eighteen nineties, right, and radio frequencies got

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00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: longer and longer and longer, it became possible to communicate internationally.

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00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 1: And that's when they realized, Okay, if we're talking about

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00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:03,399
Speaker 1: a global level of communication, we all have to more

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00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 1: or less be speaking the same language. And as technology

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00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: tends to do, it was subsumed by the next best thing,

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00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: which became the telephone or the talking telegraph, and then

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00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: radio communication or wireless right because you didn't have to

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00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: have the infrastructure. It was all just done on radio waves.

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00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: That was adopted by the military for communicating between you know,

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00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 1: planes and such. And even though uh like, for example,

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00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: amateur radio enthusiasts still use Morse code, it's a little

447
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: bit more of kind of a quirky holdover from the past.

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00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: I believe, Ben, you were telling me that the that

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00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: pilots UM and military personnel UM had to learn Morse

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00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: code up until I think the nineties, right, Yeah, up

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00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: until the nine nineties, pilots were required to know how

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00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: to communicate using Morse code, and up until two thousand

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00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: and seven, if you wanted to get an amateur radio license,

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00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: you had to pass a Morse Code proficient agency tests.

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00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: But you're right, the average person today is probably not

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00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: going to communicate Morse code, and they're probably not going

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00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: to know it. Most of us wouldn't know Morse code.

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00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I admitted at the beginning of the show

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00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: that I promptly forgot it after getting whatever merit badge

460
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: I was. I was gunning for and believe it or not,

461
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: man American morse code, the railroad morse code is still around.

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00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 1: It's nearly extinct, but it's still around. And uh, one

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00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: group of people who are keeping it alive might surprise you, sure,

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00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: amateur radio operators. I feel like that's that's an easy one.

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00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: Civil war reenactors, Civil war reenactors keep American morse code alive.

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00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: Interesting And one that I hadn't thought about is or

467
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: something we haven't even discussed at all, is that you

468
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: can also transmit morrise code visually through flashes of light

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00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: and at sea, uh, to communicate between ships or for

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00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: a ship to communicate with shore. They have these lamps

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00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: that have shutters on them. They can flash codes to uh,

472
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: you know, to the shore's You can actually get messages

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00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: back to shore by line of sight, and military personnel

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00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: POWs have used morse code through blinking to communicate the

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00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:21,719
Speaker 1: true nature their situation and prospaganda videos. It's got all

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00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: kinds of uses. Still, not to mention young lads banging

477
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 1: on tree stumps in the forest. Yes, yes, yes, it's

478
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: a huge industry nowadays. And that's our story there. There

479
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: is a point though that we should make and that

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00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 1: is that the telegraph system or something like it would

481
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: have developed without Samuel Morris because so many people were

482
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: working on something similar. However, his personal mission, his passion

483
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: to UH to save other people from the situation that

484
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: he himself encountered, played a huge role in the timing

485
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: of Morse code. For it to be come a thing

486
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: when it did. It may have taken a little bit

487
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: longer had one man not been so emotionally impersonally driven

488
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: to pursue this innovation. And you know what I say, thanks,

489
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: because we couldn't have had a podcast if things like

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00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: Morse code and telegraphs and later radio ever existed. I mean,

491
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: certainly like one of the earliest forms of long distance

492
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: communication UH that served as the basis for It's just

493
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: like the spark of an idea. It's like, hey, what

494
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: if I could communicate an idea or a thought or

495
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: a message from point A to point B. That's literally

496
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: what podcasting and broadcasting a media of any kind is.

497
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: It's all a jumping off from that simple idea. One

498
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: day we should tell the story of Farnsworth, the inventor

499
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: of television. You know, he got that idea when he

500
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: was a fourteen year old farm hand. Well story for

501
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 1: another day, and we've got to say, maybe we should

502
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: go back re record this entire episode in morse own.

503
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: What do you think? Yeah, I don't know about that.

504
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: I'll think it over. Let us know your thoughts on

505
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: Worse Code. Feel free to write to us in Worse

506
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 1: Code if you wish. You can find us on Facebook.

507
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: You can find us on almost said Amazon. I don't

508
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 1: know if you can find us in Amazon, but we're

509
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: definitely on Twitter, and you can find us collectively and

510
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: individually on Instagram. I am at Ben Boland, I am

511
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: at Embryonic Insider. You can check out our community page

512
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: on Facebook. There Ridiculous Historians, where you can drop your

513
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: history memes and hang out with your fellow podcast fans enthusiasts.

514
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: And check us out next time when we explore the

515
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: weird story of how a stray dog caused a war.

516
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: It's true in the meantime thanks to our super producer,

517
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. Casey, I want to make eye contact with

518
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 1: you and apologize for bringing up the Casey face T

519
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: shirt again. But now the more I say the phrase,

520
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: the more I'm feeling it. So I don't know if

521
00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: this puts us on opposite sides of history, but I

522
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: hope we were main friends. We'll see you ends up

523
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 1: on the right side of history thanks to Alex Williams

524
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: who composed our theme, and it's always on the right

525
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: side of history and the right side of our hearts,

526
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: along with Gabe, our research associates, and you Ben, and

527
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: to you as well, Noll and you know what to

528
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: you Samuel Morris, cheerio,