Firsts in Communication Technology

• First City-City Telegraph
  • Sender: Samuel Morse (in DC)
  • Recipient: Alfred Vail (in Baltimore)
  • Date: May 24, 1844
  • Message: "What hath God wrought?"
• First Transatlantic Telegraph
  • Sender: Queen Victoria (UK)
  • Recipient: President James Buchanan (US)
  • Date: August 16, 1858.
  • Message: letter of congratulation
• First Telephone Call
  • Sender: Alexander Graham Bell
  • Recipient: Thomas Watson
  • Date: March 10, 1876
  • Message: "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you."
• First Voice Radio Broadcast
  • Sender: Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (near Boston)
  • Recipient: Ships at sea
  • Date: December 24, 1906
  • Message: Christmas music and messages.
• First Airmail
  • Sender: from Allahabad India
  • Recipient: to Naini India
  • Date: February 18, 1911
  • Message: 6000 letters with special postmarks
• First Transcontinental Telephone Call
  • Sender: Alexander Graham Bell (in NY)
  • Recipient: Thomas Watson (in SF)
  • Date: January 25, 1915
  • Message: "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you."
• First Fax
  • Sender: AT&T engineers (NYC)
  • Recipient: To Cleveland
  • Date: 1924
  • Message: 5x7 photographs
• First Transcontinental Satellite Relay of a Television Signal
  • Sender: NASA (CA)
  • Recipient: Massachusetts
  • Date: April 24, 1962
  • Message: Poster reading "MIT" via Echo I
• First Visual Telecast Via A Communications Satellite
  • Sender: TV people
  • Recipient: People with TVs?
  • Date: February 26, 1964
  • Message: The Liston vs. Clay championship fight (via Relay 2)
• First Internet (ARPANET) Message
  • Sender: Leonard Kleinrock and Charley Kline (LA)
  • Recipient: To SF
  • Date: October 29, 1969
  • Message: Lo(gin)
• First Intercomputer Email
  • Sender: Ray Tomlinson
  • Recipient: Local computer users
  • Date: late 1971
  • Message: An announcement of the availability of remote email.
• First Hardcopy Message to Leave the Solar System
  • Sender: NASA, Carl Sagan, and colleagues
  • Recipient: outside the solar system via Voyager
  • Date: 1972
  • Message: information about Earth and human civilization
• First Public Telephone Call Placed on a Portable Cellular Phone
  • Sender: Martin Cooper (Motorola, NYC)
  • Recipient: AT&T Bell Labs
  • Date: April 3, 1973
  • Message: Signaling a market shift
• First Email Attachment
  • Sender: Nathaniel Borenstein
  • Recipient: MIME developers
  • Date: March 11, 1992
  • Message: "Let Me Sing You Email", text, photo, and audio (sung by Nathaniel Borenstein, John Lamb, David Braun, and Michael Littman---my brush with fame!)
• First Private Communication Transmission Light Years Into Deep Space
  • Sender: Jim Buckmaster
  • Recipient: anyone trillions of miles into space
  • Date: July 26, 2005
  • Message: 2,049,215 craigslist ads
• First Text Message from Mount Everest
  • Sender: Rod Baber
  • Recipient: his family
  • Date: May 21, 2007
  • Message: personal, but later sent "One small text for man, one giant leap for mobilekind -- thanks Motorola."