MAKING HISTORY FUN: LEARN YOUR NAME IN MORSE CODE

.– …. .- – / …. .- – …. / –. — -.. / .– .-. — ..- –. …. –

The Victorian era produced a number of inventions. The above marks mean: “what hath God wrought”, which was the message American inventor and painter, Samuel Morse, used in 1844 while demonstrating his telegraph device to Congress. Transmitted over a wire between Washington and Baltimore, it involved tapping out letters represented by dots and dashes in a code that would come to be known as the Morse Code.

My father was a signalman during WW II, and although I evinced a brief interest in having him share his knowledge of Morse Code with me around the age of thirteen, I can now really only remember the emergency signal  … — …  (SOS) with any certainty.

Since today is Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day, your kids might enjoy learning theirs. A Morse Code chart is below, and an actual Morse Code translator can be found at: http://morsecode.scphillips.com/jtranslator.html.

Advertisement

Tags: dots & dashes, dots and dashes, early communication systems, famous inventions, famous inventors, January 11th is Learn Your Name In Morse Code Day, making history fun, Morse code, Samuel Morse, SOS, telegraphs, Victorian inventions