OTD May 24, 1844:

Inventor Samuel F. B. Morse demonstrates the world’s first practical telegraph.

For over a decade he had struggled to patent and finance the invention, writing in a moment of discouragement, “The only gleam of hope, and I cannot underrate it, is from confidence in God. When I look upward it calms any apprehension for the future and I seem to hear a voice saying: ‘If I clothe the lilies of the field, shall I not also clothe you?’ Here is my strong confidence, and I will wait patiently for the direction of Providence.”

His first message, sent from the Supreme Court to Baltimore, was a quote from the Bible: Numbers 23:23, “What hath God wrought.”