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2000 BCE
carrier pigeons
carrier pigeon (plural carrier pigeons) A domestic pigeon which transports attached messages or very small parcels from the place where it is released to a familiar destination. -
500 BCE
written letters
The first recorded handwritten letter (epistle) was by Persian Queen Atossa around 500 BC. The stamped letter we know today came into being in the reign of Queen Victoria in 1840. -
150 BCE
smoke signals
Smoke signals are the oldest form of visual communication. Simplistic in design and execution, in 150 BC, Greek Historian Polybius devised a system of smoke signals that were visual representations of the alphabet. -
telegraph
Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse (1791-1872) and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. -
morse code
Morse code is a method for encoding text into a series of dashes and dots, that can be sent (transmitted) by means of sound, light or radio waves. The system is named by the American artist Samuel Finley Breese Morse. -
tap code
The Tap Code is a code (similar to Morse Code), commonly used by prisoners in jail to communicate with one another. The method of communicating is usually by "tapping" either the metal bars or the walls inside the cell, hence its name.
