History of telecomunications

Smoke signals

150 BCE

Smoke signals are the oldest form of visual communication. Simplistic in design and execution, they were used first used in 200 BC to send messages along the Great Wall of China. In 150 BC, Greek Historian Polybius devised a system of smoke signals that were visual representations of the alphabet. This meant that messages could easily be sent by holding sets of torchers in pairs.

Carrier pigeons

1100

Nur-ed-din built pigeon lofts and dovecotes in Cairo and Damascus, where pigeons were used to carry messages from Egypt to cities as far away as Baghdad in modern day Iraq. This extensive communication system, which used pigeons to link cities hundreds of kilometers apart, is recognised as the first organised pigeon messaging service of it’s kind. Pigeons also played a pivotal part in both WWI, unerringly delivering vital messages that helped to save the lives of thousands of civilians.

Telegraph

1844

The telegraph is a now outdated communication system that transmitted electric signals over wires from location to location that translated into a message. In 1844, Samuel Morse sent his first telegraph message, from Washington D.C. to Baltimore Maryland.

Telephone

1876

Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. ... Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal.

TV

1920

This device was created independently by two inventors: Scottish inventor John Logie Baird and American inventor Charles Francis Jenkins. Both devices were invented in the early 1920s. Prior to these two inventors, German inventor Paul Gottlieb Nipkow had developed the first mechanical television.

Computer

1946

The computer as we know it today had its beginning with a 19th century English mathematics professor name Charles Babbage. ... Other developments continued until in 1946 the first general– purpose digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was built.

Mobile phone

1973

1973: The First Mobile Telephone Call is Made.
In 1973, 10 years before a cell phone was first released onto the market, the first cell phone call was made by Motorola researcher and executive Martin Cooper. ... The call on which this phone was made was an early prototype of the DynaTAC mobile phone.