One of the biggest and most important technological
advancements in history is the invention of the telephone. To understand it we
have to go back to the beginning; not the invention of the telephone but well before
that. In 1455 Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press; eventually
this would be used to give us the first daily newspaper. Many years later in
1775 Paul Revere rode through the night to let the night to Lexington to warn
John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British where coming. Every step of the
way we have advanced our ability to communicate with each other to higher
levels than we ever thought was possible.
In 1835 Samuel Morse invented the Morse code, which would
later be used with his telegraph line to instantly send messages from one
station to another. This in many ways was the first major step for
telecommunications and just the beginning, it was the first time we could
communicate long distances in extremely short periods of time. This huge step
was used extensively to help forge America as we know it today, allowing us to
communicate between new unexplored areas back to major cities. But this was
only the beginning of telecommunications as a few years later in 1876 Alexander
Graham patented the first electric telephone and voice communication took off.
In those late 1800’s a lot of extremely important work was put into improving
upon those telecommunications, and by 1902 Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the
first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean.
When you take in the big picture of telecommunications it’s
almost staggering to think of how it has effected everything from the way we
communicate to each other on a daily basis to the turning the tides of entire
wars. Imagine for a moment a world without telephones. How would you
communicate? Would you have to drive into town to get the latest news? How old
would that news be? Would you even hear much news from outside of the country
very often? It is taken for granted how important this line of communication is
and how much it has affected our world too often, but to really understand the
scope of its lasting impressions you really have to evaluate the whole story
from the beginning.
When you jump forward past the simple beginnings of two
piece phone sets for the rich and rotary dials you’ll land somewhere around the
1990’s where cell phones began growing in popularity. Here we see another giant
shift in the movements of telecommunications and we free ourselves from
dedicated lines, now relying on satellites to relay signals between people. As
this grew in popularity so did the rise of text messages which altered the way
we communicated with each other, and everything started becoming a larger web
with even more communication. Suddenly it’s possible to send quick messages and
make life saving phone calls instantly during car crashes without having to
walk to the nearest landline.
We live in a constantly shifting world, the good news is
that is consistently shifting forward and we are able to build upon the
successes of those that preceded us. Ever moving forward we must not forget to
occasionally take a look behind us and recognize how we got to where we are.
Today smart phones allow us to do everything from browse the internet and watch
videos of people’s cats doing odd things for entertainment to hosting video
conferences with executive business partners who might want to start a company
that will market videos of cats doing odd things to the entire world. The
possibilities are only growing and the worst thing anyone can do is stop
imagining and assume that we have hit the limit, because we’re just getting
started.
Biography.com, Paul Revere,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/paul-revere-9456172
Bellis, Mary, The History of Communication (2012) http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_history_of_communication.htm
Bellis, Mary, The History of the Electronic Telegraph and Telegraphy
(2012) http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/telegraph.htm
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