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The era of the telegram, a communication method that shaped history for over 150 years, came to a quiet end on January 27, 2006, when Western Union delivered its last telegram in the United States.
In the modern era, the telegraph had been largely supplanted by telephones, faxes, emails, and instant messaging. It left behind a legacy of brevity and urgency in messaging that influenced communication styles for generations.
The telegraph, invented by Samuel Morse, revolutionized long-distance communication when he sent the first telegraphic message "What hath God wrought?" in 1844.
He ushered in the age of instant communication.
By the late 19th century, a vast network of telegraph lines spanned continents and even oceans, enabling near-instantaneous communication across the globe. It fundamentally changed fields like journalism, diplomacy, and warfare.
Perhaps the most astonishing fact is that in 1871, when a transatlantic telegraph cable was completed, it reduced the time it took for news to travel between London and New York from about 10 days to mere minutes, a speed increase of roughly 14,000 times.
During the 1920s and 1930s, telegrams reached their zenith of popularity, offering a more affordable alternative to long-distance telephone calls and becoming an integral part of daily communication.
The era gave birth to a distinctive telegram writing style, characterized by terse phrases and the iconic use of "STOP" to denote the end of a sentence, which inadvertently led to some hilariously misinterpreted messages when read aloud.
Western Union telegram service inadvertently became a lifeline for bootleggers during Prohibition, who used coded messages to coordinate their illicit alcohol shipments.
The transition from telegrams to rotary phones began in the late 19th century, with Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone in 1876 marking a pivotal moment.
Surprisingly, some early telephone users were so accustomed to telegrams that they would shout "Ahoy!" into the phone instead of "Hello," a greeting suggested by Thomas Edison.
By the 1930s, rotary phones had become increasingly common in households, though telegrams remained in use for urgent messages until the 1960s.
Western Union discontinued its telegram service in 2006, ending over 150 years of American communication history.
India, however, continued using telegrams until July 14, 2013, with the last telegram sent at 11:30 PM reading "Long live the telegram" in Hindi.
On the final day of India's telegram service, over 20,000 telegrams were sent, far exceeding the daily average of 5,000 in its last days.
At its peak in the mid-1980s, India's telegram service employed over 45,000 people and handled about 60 million telegrams annually.
Telegrams became so ingrained in Indian culture that they were frequently used as dramatic plot devices in Bollywood films to convey urgent news.
The telegram, once the fastest form of long-distance communication, ironically shaped our modern obsession with brevity in digital messaging, as its per-word pricing encouraged concise writing.
The last telegram in the United States was sent in 2006 to author Tom Wolfe, whose novel "The Bonfire of the Vanities" explored themes of communication and societal change.
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