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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeart Radio,

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that decodes history one day at a time. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at the time when

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Speaker 1: the world made the wise choice to use just one

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Speaker 1: distress call for ships, no matter which country they hail from.

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Speaker 1: The day was November three, nineteen o six. At an

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Speaker 1: international conference held in Berlin, s O S became the

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Speaker 1: officially recognized distress call for ships at sea. However, since

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Speaker 1: several other distress calls were already in use, it took

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Speaker 1: a few more years for the signal to become the

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Speaker 1: standard worldwide. Before s O S became international symbol for distress,

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Speaker 1: telegraphists and wireless operators used c q D to call

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Speaker 1: for help. These letters were adapted from an even earlier

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Speaker 1: code c Q, which was used to communicate with all

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Speaker 1: stations at one time. But in the early twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: a major British telecommunications company named Marconi decided it was

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Speaker 1: time for a new emergency signal. They retained c Q

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Speaker 1: because of its familiarity, but added a D at the

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Speaker 1: end to indicate distress. Some people theorized that c q

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Speaker 1: D was an acronym for come Quick distress or come

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Speaker 1: Quick danger, but the company behind the signal said it

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Speaker 1: didn't really stand for anything and was just meant to

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Speaker 1: express that a ship was in peril. Although Marconi convinced

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Speaker 1: the British to adopt c q D as their official

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Speaker 1: distress call, other countries also made up their own. The

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Speaker 1: United States used n C as an alternative call, Germany

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Speaker 1: had S O E, and Italy went with S S,

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Speaker 1: S D D D, which certainly was distinct. The lack

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Speaker 1: of uniformity between distress calls hindered their effectiveness, as someone

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Speaker 1: who received the signal might not understand what it meant.

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Speaker 1: But there was another problem with the signals and use

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Speaker 1: at that time. When expressed through Morse code, each of

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Speaker 1: them was sent as a sequence of letters with brief

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Speaker 1: spaces between them. If those pauses were removed, the message

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Speaker 1: could be sent as a continuous stream instead of a

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Speaker 1: sequence of letters. This would be faster and easier to

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Speaker 1: tap out again and again, plus the lack of pauses

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Speaker 1: would be more likely to catch the attention of a

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Speaker 1: receiving operator. In light of these concerns, the matter was

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Speaker 1: taken up at the Second International Radio Telegraphic Conference in

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Speaker 1: nineteen o six. Searching for a simpler signal, the delegates

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Speaker 1: came up with dot dot dot dash dash dash dot

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Speaker 1: dot dot, which was chosen because of its ease of

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Speaker 1: transmission and because it couldn't be mistaken in Morse code

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Speaker 1: for any known word or abbreviation. The pattern rendered an

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Speaker 1: international Morse code as S O S was instantly recognizable.

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Speaker 1: Once again, the signal wasn't intended as an acronym, though

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Speaker 1: it would be suggested later that it could stand for

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Speaker 1: save our ship or save our souls. In reality, the

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Speaker 1: delegates didn't give much thought, if any, to the alphabetic

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Speaker 1: equivalence of the Morse pattern they chose. Still, in a

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Speaker 1: nice bit of coincidence, s O S is also a

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Speaker 1: distinctive visual symbol. Not only is it a palindrome, meaning

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Speaker 1: it look the same backwards as it does forwards, it's

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Speaker 1: also an ambigram, which means it appears the same upside

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Speaker 1: down as it does right side up. This makes it

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Speaker 1: easy to read no matter which angle it's seen from,

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Speaker 1: including when viewed in a mirror. The delegates approved s

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Speaker 1: O S for use on November three, nineteen o six,

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Speaker 1: and that change went into effect two years later when

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Speaker 1: it was ratified by all attending Conference members, except for

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Speaker 1: the United States, which held out for a few more years.

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Speaker 1: That said, although the US was slow to adopt the

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Speaker 1: new signal, the first recorded S O S was actually

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Speaker 1: sent from an American ship, the S s Arapaho in

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Speaker 1: nine But old habits die hard, and three years later

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Speaker 1: most American and British ships still used c q D

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Speaker 1: as their go to distress call. That finally changed in

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Speaker 1: April of twelve with the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

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Speaker 1: On the night the ship went down, the wireless operators

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Speaker 1: on board were still using the old signal. Eventually, junior

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Speaker 1: operator Harold Bride suggested they give S O S a try.

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Speaker 1: He jokingly told senior operator Jack Phillips, quote, send S

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Speaker 1: O S. It's the new call, and it may be

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Speaker 1: your last chance to send it. Sadly, that proved to

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Speaker 1: be the case. Bride survived the Titanic, but Phillips did not.

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Speaker 1: S OS may not have saved the Titanic, but the

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Speaker 1: disaster was a wake up call for the US and

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Speaker 1: for everyone else who had questioned the need for a

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Speaker 1: truly international signal. It quickly became the standard distress call

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Speaker 1: for all ships at sea, and remained so until eighty

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Speaker 1: seven years later, in Morse code was formally retired from

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Speaker 1: marine communication, and of course s o S went with it.

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Speaker 1: The replacement was the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System,

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Speaker 1: which uses satellites to relay messages around the world. Of course,

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Speaker 1: if all else fails, s o S still works as

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Speaker 1: a fine backup distress call. Whether you send it in

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Speaker 1: Morse code, signal it through flashes of light, or spell

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Speaker 1: it out with rocks and sticks, there's a good chance

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Speaker 1: than anyone who sees it will know exactly what it means.

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Speaker 1: Shoot on site. No, no, just kidding. I'm Gabe Lousier

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep

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Speaker 1: up with the show, you can follow us on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram at t d I HC Show And

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Speaker 1: if you're feeling inspired by today's episode, you can send

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Speaker 1: us a message and morse code at this day at

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Speaker 1: ihart media dot com. And if you don't no morse code,

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Speaker 1: don't worry, because neither do we. If you just send

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Speaker 1: a bunch of random dots, and dashes will still be impressive.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for another day in history class. For more podcasts from

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