How to Learn Morse Code, the ‘Secret Handshake’ of the Digital Age

Inside the Supreme Court chamber of the U.S. Capitol on May 24, 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse sat down to make history. The moment was the culmination of more than 12 years of work, and it was only in the past year that Morse had finally convinced Congress to fund a $30,000 experimental project. After spending that past year snaking 40 miles of telegraph wire along a railway stretching from the nation’s capital to a train depot in Baltimore, Morse finally placed his hand on the telegraph key and tapped:

“What Hath God Wrought?”

The question was an apt one because with that collection of dots and dashes, Morse had effectively opened the floodgates of the information age. Within a decade, 23,000 miles of telegraph wire criss-crossed the U.S., and in 1866—six years before Morse’s death—the first transatlantic wire connected America with Great Britain. Information that once took weeks or even months to reach its intended recipient, now took only seconds.

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