Every Day Is Special: communication

Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts

June 2 - News on Wires and Wireless Day

Posted on June 2, 2021

This is an update of my post published on June 2, 2010:

On this day in 1875, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson first transmitted sound over wires. Watson twanged a spring near one device, and Bell heard it through the other device. It took about nine more months for the two to create that more famous first—transmitting understandable words through the world's first telephone.

On this day in 1896, Guglielmo Marconi obtained his first radio patent in England. It was termed a wireless telegraphy apparatus.

The first half of the 1800s had seen a revolution in communication through electricity: the invention and improvement of the telegraph. The telegraph required wires for the message to travel across, and it also required trained operators who could translate messages into Morse Code (and Morse Code back into messages).

In the later half of the 1800s, many people continued to work with electricity and communications. Bell's and Watson's telephone was an improvement over the telegraph in that translators and codes were not required. Marconi's radio was an improvement in that no wires were needed.

Of course, we now have wireless networks and satellite communication – with the internet and cellular phones making communications worldwide much faster, cheaper, and more reliable than ever before. And people are still working on making our newest systems even better.

Did you know...?

Marconi did not discover any new principles or hatch any new ideas in his successful radio device. Instead, he improved and combined components others had already invented, adapting them to his system.

Bell was very interested in sound partly because of his mother's gradual deafness, which began when he was just12 years old.

Marconi was born and died in Italy, although he did much of his work in England and some in the U.S.

Bell was born in Scotland, moved to Canada, and did much of his work in the U.S.

Marconi's “marvelous invention” was given credit by some for the rescue of the survivors of the Titanic, because wireless technology was used by the Titanic, the rescue ship Carpathia, and Marconi International Marine Communication Company.

Bell decided that his most famous invention was a source of unwanted interruption, and he wouldn't allow a telephone to be installed in his study.

Explore Some More

The classic soup-can-and-string telephone can help us understand how early telephones worked.

Little kids might need to practice learning phone numbers (including emergency phone numbers such as 9-1-1). This DLTK worksheet can help.

Read more about the history of radios here.

People still build their own crystal radios! Remember, radio can be a two-way communication device (like ham radios and the radios used by police and boats) as well as the more familiar one-way device (tuning into commercial radio transmissions).

Here are some directions for building a crystal radio receiver.

There are broadcast and Internet radio stations meant just for kids. Pandora delivers six different kids' stations!

Here's a fairly simple explanation of how radios work.

Also on this date:

Republic Day in Italy

Rocky Road Day

Poet Thomas Hardy's birthday

Geochemist Clair Patterson's birthday

Yell “Fudge” at the Cobras in North America Day

National Bubba Day

Birthday of artist Tobias Rehberger

Anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper

Civil Aviation Day in Azerbaijan

Botev Day in Bulgaria

Clean Air Day in Canada
(First Wednesday in June)

Plan ahead:

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July holidays
July birthdays
Historical anniversaries in July

April 3 - Here Comes the Pony Express

Posted on April 3, 2021

This is an update of my post published on April 3, 2010:

On this day in 1860, the Pony Express began. This was a new, quicker method of getting mail from California to Missouri—and thus to the eastern United States—and of course from the eastern U.S. to California, as well!

Before the Pony Express, mail took about 22 days to go by steamship from New York to Panama to San Francisco (the mail was carried by mule across the isthmus of Panama), or 21 to 25 days to travel across the continent by wagon or stagecoach. The Pony Express cut this time in half!

Using a relay of horseback riders to carry mail across 2,000 miles of wilderness, across plains and deserts, over mountains and rivers—the Pony Express could get the mail across the country in just 10 days.

The Pony Express was not just faster, but also more reliable year-round. A Pony Express rider starting his route would travel approximately 15 miles by small horse or pony to the next station, where he would take a two-minute break and then mount a new horse and go on. After riding from 75 to 100 miles, the rider would hand off his mailbag to the next rider in the relay.

The Pony Express involved about 80 riders and between 400 and 500 horses. Eventually there were more than 100 stations and of course other employees to run the stations and care for the horses.

Keep it light!

In order to achieve speed of delivery, the Pony Express used small riders—usually young men or teenagers who were no more than 125 pounds. The riders carried in their mail pouches (called mochilas) 20 pounds of mail and 20 more pounds of necessary items, including a water sack, a Bible, a horn to alert the station master to prepare the next horse, a revolver, and a rifle.

As time went on, this list got trimmed down until each rider ONLY carried a water sack and a revolver.

Through rain and snow...

In the General Post Office in New York City is the following inscription:

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

This is a translation from the ancient Greek writer Herodotus, and it describes mounted mail carriers used by the ancient Persians. But it is also a pretty good description of the Pony Express. Remember, the Pony Express worked year-round, and riders carried mail day and night. When they were hired, the riders were told that the mail bags and their contents were all-important. According to Wikipedia, “the horse and rider should perish before the mochila [mail bag] did.”

The route of the Pony Express was filled with dangers, including harsh weather, fierce wildlife, and the most dangerous animals of all—people—but in the entire time of its operation, only one bag of mail was ever lost.

A Short-lived Success

With its reputation for speed and reliability, the Pony Express was definitely viewed as a success, but it closed down just 18 months after it began. Why?

By November of 1861, the transcontinental telegraph was completed, and messages could suddenly travel across the country in a matter of minutes rather than days! So the Pony Express, outmoded and unneeded, closed up shop.

Still, historians say that the more rapid communications helped keep the Union (including California) together during the Civil War. At least one former Pony Express rider, Buffalo Bill Cody, went on to be famous, and the whole enterprise added to the almost mythic story of courage and drama that was the Old West.

Pony Express Fun

Check out the Pony Express museum website.

Imagine seeing this newspaper ad:

“Wanted, young skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 a week. Apply Central Overland Express."

Yikes! Risk death daily? Orphans preferred?

This ad makes the job sound way scary (and it was!), and although a LOT of sources present this ad as real history, apparently most Pony Express historians think it is phony - oft-repeated folklore - but still accurate in its job description!

Read some actual newspaper articles and ads from the time.