History of Communication Technology

• Native Americans and some other ancient civilizations such as China, Egypt and Greece used smoke signals.

• However, such method was not good because of the weather and other reasons.

• Then, about 2500 years ago, there was a period in history when a messenger on horse or on foot was sent from one region to another with messages.

• There is a story about the ancient Greek Phidippides. He ran about 240 km in two days and back. Then he ran 40 km from Athens to Marathon city and then back to Athens to say "We win" in the war against the Persians.

• This is where we get our modern marathon racing.

• Some of the first telegraphs were made in the late 1700s, but these were hard to use.

• In ancient Egypt and some Asian countries pigeons were used as messengers.

• But in Europe they became popular much later.

• The most popular were the pigeons, which were used in England.

• They could fly as long as 1,800 km and the highest speed was up to 160 km/h.

• In 1815 there was a first pigeon messenger sent from Paris to London.

• The invention of telephone is the result of work of many people. But Alexander Graham Bell is known as the inventor of the first practical phone in 1876.

• In 1894 there was the first type of radio technology. Broadcasting began later with AM radio which became very popular. We don't use it now. We use FM radio which is better than AM radio.

• One of the great inventions of our time is the computer. Today, billions of people use computers in their daily life.

• But the first computers were very large and expensive. People could buy Personal Computers only in the mid 1970s.

• The first official mobile phone was invented in 1973 by Martin Cooper.

Test your knowledge of the evolution of communication technology from ancient smoke signals to the modern-day inventions like phones and computers.