Samuel Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was well educated, having studied art at Yale and later in London. He was a successful painter and sculptor, achieving the position of professor of art at New York University in 1832. At about the same time as he took up this appointment he became interested in chemistry and electrical experiments. In 1836 he developed the electromagnetic telegraph which he patented in Washington D.C. one year later.

Morse is most famous for devising the Morse code which depicts letters and numbers as a series of different combinations of 'dots' and 'dashes' (shorter and longer signals). In 1848 he was granted $30000 to install a telegraph line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore. This telegraph line was completed in May 1844. Morse's first message read, "What hath God wrought?".

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