Timeline

1791	Samuel Finley Breese Morse is born in Charlestown, Massachusetts on April 27.
1799	Morse enters Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.
1800	Alessandro Volta (Italy) creates the "voltaic pile," a battery that produces a reliable, steady current of electricity.
1805	1805: Morse enters Yale College at age 14.
1810	Morse graduated from Yale College.
1811	Morse travels to London, England to attend Royal Academy of Arts.
1815	Morse returns to the United States and opens an art studio in Boston.
1816	Morse meets Lucretia Pickering Walker, aged 16, in Concord, NH.
1818	Morse & Lucretia Pickering Walker are married in Concord.
1820	Hans Christian Oersted, a physicist in Denmark, discovers that electric current in a wire generates a magnetic field that can deflect a compass needle. This will later be important in the design of electromagnetic telegraph systems.
1822	Morse finishes an 18-month project to paint the House of Representatives, an oversized scene of the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
1823	Morse opens an art studio in New York City. In November, artists in New York City form a drawing cooperative, the New York Drawing Association, and elect Morse president. It is run by and for artists, and its goals include art instruction.William Sturgeon invents the electromagnet, which will be a key component of the telegraph.
1825	On February 7, Morse's wife, Lucretia, dies suddenly at age 25.  By the time he is notified and returns home to New Haven, she has already been buried.
1826	Morse becomes a founder and first president of the National Academy of Design in New York Morse’s father, Jedidah Morse, dies on June 9
1827	Professor James Freeman Dana of Columbia College gives a series of lectures on electricity and electromagnetism at the New York Athenaeum, where Morse also lectures. Through their friendship, Morse becomes more familiar with the properties of electricity.
1829	Morse travels in Europe for 3 years, studying Old Masters and other painters and painting landscapes.
1831	Joseph Henry, an American scientist, discovers a powerful electromagnet made from many layers of insulated wire. He demonstrates how such a magnet can send electric signals over long distances and suggests the possibility of the telegraph
1832	Morse first conceives the idea of the electromagnetic telegraph while on his voyage home top the U.S. While in conversation with another passenger, Dr. Charles T. Jackson of Boston, Jackson describes to him European experiments with electromagnetism. Morse then writes ideas for a prototype of an electromagnetic recording telegraph and dot-and-dash code system in his sketchbook and later works on the development of a telegraph system.
1833	Morse completes the 6' x 9' painting of the Gallery of the Louvre.
1835	Morse constructs a recording telegraph with a moving paper ribbon and demonstrates it to several friends and acquaintances.
1836	In January, Morse demonstrates his recording telegraph to Dr. Leonard Gale, a professor of science at New York University.
1837	Morse shows Dr. Gale his plans for "relays," in which one electric circuit is used to open and close a switch on another electric circuit further away. By November, a message can be sent through ten miles of wire arranged on reels in Dr. Gale's university lecture room. After completing his last paintings in December, Morse retires from painting to dedicate his time to the telegraph.
1838	On January 24, Morse demonstrates the telegraph to his friends in his university studio. On February 8, he demonstrates the telegraph before a scientific committee at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute. On February 21, Morse demonstrates the telegraph to President Martin Van Buren and his cabinet
1840	Morse is granted a United States patent for his telegraph. Morse opens a daguerreotype portrait studio in New York with John William Draper. Morse teaches the process to several others, including Mathew Brady, the future Civil War photographer.
1844	On May 24, Morse sends the telegraph message "What hath God wrought?" from the Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to the B & O Railroad Depot in Baltimore, Maryland.
1845	On January 3, in England, a John Tawell is arrested for the murder of his mistress. He escapes by train to London, but his description is wired ahead by telegraph and police are waiting for him when he arrives.
1854	The British and French built telegraph lines to use in the Crimean War. The governments are now able to communicate directly with the front line and newspaper correspondents are able to wire in war reports.
1859	The Magnetic Telegraph Company becomes a part of Field's American Telegraph Company.
1861	The Civil War begins and the telegraph is used by both the Union and Confederate forces. Stringing up telegraph wires becomes an important part of military operations.
1872	On April 2, Samuel F. B. Morse died in New York City at the age of eighty. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.