Quiz of the Day
Communication & Inventions
Sunday, 24 May 2026
Samuel Morse sent first telegraph 1844 — communication history, invention milestones
1. What was the first message Samuel Morse sent by telegraph in 1844?
- 'What hath God wrought'
- 'The message has been received'
- 'Come here, I need you'
- 'Hello, is anyone there?'
Morse sent this biblical quote (from Numbers 23:23) from the US Capitol in Washington DC to his assistant Alfred Vail in Baltimore on 24 May 1844. The message travelled along 38 miles of wire and was chosen by Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of the Commissioner of Patents.
2. What does SOS stand for in Morse code?
- Save Our Ship
- It doesn't stand for anything — it was chosen because the pattern is easy to transmit
- Send Out Succour
- Save Our Souls
SOS (three dots, three dashes, three dots: ...---...) was adopted in 1906 because it was simple and unmistakable, not because of any phrase. 'Save Our Souls' is a backronym invented later. The Titanic was one of the first ships to use SOS, although its operators initially sent the older CQD distress signal.
3. Who is credited with inventing the telephone in 1876?
- Nikola Tesla
- Guglielmo Marconi
- Thomas Edison
- Alexander Graham Bell
Bell filed his patent just hours before rival inventor Elisha Gray submitted his own design — one of history's closest patent races. Bell's first words over the phone to his assistant were 'Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you.' Gray's design may actually have been superior, sparking a controversy that lasted decades.
4. What system of communication used a series of towers with movable arms visible from a distance?
- Heliograph
- Smoke signals
- Semaphore telegraph
- Carrier pigeon network
Claude Chappe built France's first semaphore network in 1794, with towers spaced 10-20 miles apart. Operators used telescopes to read arm positions on the next tower. A message could travel 150 miles in under 30 minutes — revolutionary for its time. Napoleon used it extensively for military communication.
5. Which invention by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440 revolutionised the spread of information?
- The postal service
- Paper manufacturing
- The fountain pen
- The printing press with movable type
Before Gutenberg, a single book could take months to copy by hand. His press could produce 3,600 pages per day. Within 50 years, over 20 million volumes had been printed across Europe. This information explosion helped fuel the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution.
6. Who sent the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901?
- Guglielmo Marconi
- Nikola Tesla
- Thomas Edison
- Heinrich Hertz
Marconi transmitted the Morse code letter 'S' from Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada — a distance of 2,200 miles. Scientists of the time believed radio waves would travel in straight lines and fly off into space rather than following the Earth's curvature. The ionosphere's role in bouncing signals was not yet understood.
7. What was the name of the first message sent over the internet (ARPANET) in 1969?
- 'Test message one'
- 'Hello World'
- 'The internet is open'
- 'Login' (but it crashed after 'Lo')
On 29 October 1969, UCLA student Charley Kline tried to send 'LOGIN' to Stanford Research Institute. The system crashed after transmitting just 'L' and 'O', making 'Lo' — as in 'Lo and behold' — the internet's accidentally poetic first message. They got the full word through about an hour later.
8. Which ancient civilisation developed one of the earliest known writing systems, called cuneiform?
- Indus Valley
- Ancient Egypt
- Sumerians (Mesopotamia)
- Ancient Greece
Cuneiform emerged around 3400 BC in what is now Iraq, initially as pictographs for recording grain and livestock. Scribes pressed wedge-shaped marks into wet clay tablets, which were then dried or baked. Many early tablets are essentially shopping lists and tax records — bureaucracy is truly as old as civilisation.
9. What year was the first text message (SMS) sent?
- 1989
- 1985
- 1992
- 1997
On 3 December 1992, engineer Neil Papworth sent 'Merry Christmas' from his computer to Richard Jarvis's Vodafone phone. Mobile phones couldn't send texts yet — only receive them. It took another year before Nokia produced a phone that could send SMS. The message's NFT sold at auction in 2021 for over 100,000 euros.
10. What communication technology did carrier pigeons provide for centuries?
- Long-distance aerial mail delivery
- Navigation at sea
- Musical performances
- Weather forecasting
Pigeons carried messages in ancient Rome, during the Siege of Paris (1870), and throughout both World Wars. A pigeon named Cher Ami saved 194 US soldiers in WWI by delivering a message despite being shot through the breast, blinded in one eye, and losing a leg. It was awarded the French Croix de Guerre.
11. Who is credited with sending the first email in 1971?
- Bill Gates
- Vint Cerf
- Ray Tomlinson
- Tim Berners-Lee
Tomlinson chose the @ symbol to separate usernames from computer names, giving us the email address format we still use. He couldn't remember what the first email said — probably 'QWERTYUIOP' or something similar, as he was just testing. He once said the messages were 'not memorable and therefore forgotten.'
12. What groundbreaking device did Tim Berners-Lee invent at CERN in 1989?
- The smartphone
- The internet
- The World Wide Web
Berners-Lee created HTML, URLs, and HTTP — the foundations of every website. His original proposal was labelled 'Vague but exciting' by his boss. Crucially, he chose not to patent it, keeping the web free and open for everyone. He has said this decision was 'the best thing I ever did.'
13. What technology did the ancient Greeks use to send messages over long distances using reflected sunlight?
- Crystal ball
- Sundial
- Fire beacon
- Heliograph
The heliograph used mirrors to flash coded sunlight signals over distances of up to 50 miles. It remained in military use remarkably late — the British Army used heliographs during the Boer War (1899-1902) and even into World War I. On clear days, it was faster and more secure than early radio.
14. What was the name of the first communications satellite, launched in 1962?
- Telstar
- Sputnik
- Echo 1
- Explorer 1
Telstar 1 relayed the first live transatlantic television signal on 23 July 1962, showing images of the Statue of Liberty to viewers in France and the UK. It also inspired the instrumental hit 'Telstar' by The Tornados — the first US number-one single by a British band, three months before the Beatles crossed the Atlantic.
15. Which writing instrument, invented in 1938, replaced fountain pens for everyday use?
- Ballpoint pen
- Felt-tip pen
- Gel pen
- Mechanical pencil
Hungarian journalist Laszlo Biro noticed newspaper ink dried quickly without smudging and adapted it for a pen with a tiny rotating ball in the tip. British financier Henry Martin licensed the design and sold Biro pens to RAF aircrews during WWII because they worked at high altitude where fountain pens leaked. In much of the world, pens are still called 'biros.'