Samuel F B Morse, American artist and the inventor of Morse code, c 1870

Samuel F B Morse, American artist and the inventor of Morse code, c 1870. Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872) was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States and was a trained portrait painter. He was also a keen inventor, and in 1832 conceived the idea of a magnetic telegraph using a single wire system, which he exhibited to Congress in 1837. He created a dot and dash code for sending messages which used different numbers representing the letters in the English alphabet and the ten digits, and became known as Morse code. In 1844 an experimental telegraph line was completed between Washington and Baltimore and Morse sent the first historical message: 'What hath God wrought?'. Published by the International Telecommunication Union (1955-1964). ©SSPL/Science Museum