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Samuel Finley Breese Morse is Born
Samuel F. B. born in Charlestown, Massachusetts to Jedidiah Morse and Elizabeth Ann Finley Breese. -
Morse enters Phillips Academy
Andover, Massachusetts -
Samuel enters Yale College
At the age of 14 Samuel is admitted to Yale College, where he learns about electricity from lectures from Benjamin Silliman and Jeremiah Day. -
Samuel graduates from Yale
Samuel graduates from Yale and returns to his hometown Charlestown, Massachusetts. Despite his wishes to become a painter, Samuel's parents planned for him to apprentice a bookseller in Boston. -
Samuel sails for England
In July, Samuel's parents allowed him to further his artistic career by allowing him to sail to England to study art under the American painter Benjamin West. -
Samuel is awarded gold medal for his art
Morse's plaster statuette of the Dying Hercules wins him a gold medal at the Adelphi Society of Arts exhibition in London. -
Samuel moves to New Hampshire
In search of portrait commissions to support himself, Samuel moves to New Hampshire. -
Samuel and his brother patent a water pump
Samuel and his brother patent a flexible piston man-powered water pump for fire engines, although they demonstrate its abilities successfully the product is a commercial failure. -
Samuel is wed
Lucia Pickering Walker and Morse marry in Concord, New Hampshire. -
Samuel's wife dies
At the age of 25, Lucretia Morse dies in New Hampshire. -
Morse becomes president of NAD
In New York, Morse helps to establish the National Academy of Design, and becomes its first president. -
Samuel concieves the idea of Morse code and Telegraph
On a ship sailing back to New York, Samuel begins sketching prototypes and begins to develop Morse code. This same year he is appointed as professor of painting and sculpting in NYU -
Samuel patents telegraph
After years of contemplating the idea of a telegraph and its mechanics, Samuel creates a working telegraph and files a patent for it. -
Morse is given gov't contract
After showing the telegraph to Congress, Morse is soon given a contract for 30,000 dollars to build a fifty-mile telegraph line. -
Morse meets Daguerre
In Paris, Samuel meets Louis Daguerre and is taught about the Daguerreotype. -
Congress approves another telegraph line
Congress votes to appropriate $30,000 for an experimental telegraph line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. Construction of the telegraph line begins several months later. -
Telegraph line extended
The telegraph line is extended from Baltimore to Philadelphia. New York is now connected to Washington, D.C., Boston, and Buffalo. -
Telegraph line connecting London and Paris
A submarine telegraph cable is successfully laid across the English Channel; direct London to Paris communications begin. -
Trans-Atlantic Telegraph line
The first transatlantic cable message is sent from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. -
Transcontinental Telegraph line
Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line to California. -
Samuel dies
Samuel Morse dies in New York City at eighty-one years of age. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn.