Firsts in Communication Technology
Communication technology is an important part of our lives. What are
some of famous firsts?
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First City-City Telegraph
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First Transatlantic Telegraph
- Sender: Queen Victoria (UK)
- Recipient: President James Buchanan (US)
- Date: August 16, 1858.
- Message: letter of congratulation
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First Telephone Call
- Sender: Alexander Graham Bell
- Recipient: Thomas Watson
- Date: March 10, 1876
- Message: "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you."
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First Voice Radio Broadcast
- Sender: Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (near Boston)
- Recipient: Ships at sea
- Date: December 24, 1906
- Message: Christmas music and messages.
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First Airmail
- Sender: from Allahabad India
- Recipient: to Naini India
- Date: February 18, 1911
- Message: 6000 letters with special postmarks
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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."
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First Fax
- Sender: AT&T engineers (NYC)
- Recipient: To Cleveland
- Date: 1924
- Message: 5x7 photographs
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First Transcontinental Satellite Relay of a Television Signal
- Sender: NASA (CA)
- Recipient: Massachusetts
- Date: April 24, 1962
- Message:
Poster reading "MIT" via Echo I
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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)
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First Internet (ARPANET) Message
- Sender: Leonard Kleinrock and Charley Kline (LA)
- Recipient: To SF
- Date: October 29, 1969
- Message: Lo(gin)
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First Intercomputer Email
- Sender: Ray Tomlinson
- Recipient: Local computer users
- Date: late 1971
- Message: An announcement of the availability of remote email.
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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
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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
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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!)
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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
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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."
Some firsts I wasn't able to track down or didn't fit the list:
Instant message (UNIX talk), letter,
first transatlantic wireless message, message from space,
first ship-to-ship message bounced off the moon,
transmission from the moon, voicemail, text message.