#79. DOT – DASH – DOT

 

#79. DOT – DASH – DOT

Time travel with me for this one. 

 You’re in Washington Square Park on a chilly January morning in 1838. A puzzling sight. Samuel Morse and some colleagues drop a line of coiled copper wire from a high window in an NYU building on the Park’s east side. They run the wire across the street into the Park, down a path, wrap it around some trees, and then back to the building. 

What happens next? The first successful public demonstration of the telegraph in the U.S. using the code of dots and dashes that Morse invented. The first message? Attention! The Universe! By Kingdoms Right Wheel. Wha? A strange choice. Morse didn’t have a first message in mind, so a military officer watching the demonstration spontaneously suggested a military maneuver. Morse used it. And then probably had to run off and teach a class. 

Morse was primarily a painter and a professor of painting and sculpture at NYU. History happened in Washington Square.