Nowadays, connecting with another person is incredibly easy. Even if they are in a different city, country, or on another continent, you can make a regular phone call, send an SMS or MMS, text or voice message via a messenger, or even have a video call. All of this is technically and financially accessible to almost anyone on the planet.
The history of communication is a chain of brilliant inventions. Some have remained in service and continue to evolve, while others have vanished completely — you can only encounter them in old movies or books. But they existed. Let’s remember them.
Smoke Signals and Drums
One of the earliest long-distance alerting systems was a simple bonfire. In one scene from “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” Gondor calls for aid from Rohan using a chain of signal fires placed dozens of miles apart.
A single fire worked fine as an emergency beacon, but what if you needed to send a more complex message? Native Americans, Africans, and the Chinese used puffs of smoke for this purpose. The system was straightforward: a certain number of smoke clouds meant “enemy approaching,” “hunt successful,” or “gather for council.”
Sound signals were also used — drums. Drummers encoded words with rhythms and tones, almost like Morse code.
These methods disappeared in the 19th century with the invention of the telegraph, which no longer required line of sight, good weather, or sharp hearing.
Carrier Pigeons
As far back as Ancient Egypt and Persia, specially trained pigeons were used to deliver messages. The bird would fly home carrying a note tied to its leg. In the Middle Ages, pigeon post was standard: Ottoman sultans received news from distant provinces in just a few hours.
Like any courier service, pigeons served both civilian and military needs. The most famous episode occurred during World War I. A surrounded American battalion was under friendly artillery fire, and the only way to get a message through was with a pigeon named Cher Ami.
Despite being severely wounded in flight (losing an eye and most of one leg), Cher Ami reached its destination. The barrage was lifted, and the battalion was saved. The bird received a prosthetic wooden leg and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre.
Pigeon post continued for several more decades and was finally discontinued in the mid-20th century, replaced by telegraph, telephone, and aviation.
Flags and Semaphore Towers
One of the shortest-lived communication inventions was the optical (or semaphore) telegraph, invented by Claude Chappe around 1790. It consisted of a chain of towers (similar to signal fires) where large movable “arms” mimicked gestures. An operator in each tower moved the arms using levers to form coded positions.
Napoleon himself used the system: contemporaries recorded that a message could travel from Paris to Lyon — about 200 km — in just a few minutes.
A related version was used at sea: sailors waved different signal flags to transmit coded messages.
All of this came to an end with the next invention…
The Electric Telegraph
The greatest breakthrough in communication was Samuel Morse’s electric telegraph and his famous code. In 1844, Morse sent the first official message — “What hath God wrought!” — over 64 km. It was not only a technical triumph but also a conceptual one, as Morse created a complete alphabet code we now know as Morse code.
The telegraph era began. Within ten years, the U.S. had over 37,000 km of telegraph lines. In 1866, a transatlantic cable finally linked Europe and America.
The world used the telegraph almost until the present day. Western Union stopped offering the service only in 2006, and the very last telegram in the world was sent and received in India in 2013.
Pneumatic Tube Mail
Another remarkable invention was pneumatic post. Capsules containing letters were shot through tubes by compressed air, traveling significant distances — for example, between buildings.
The system was complex and temperamental, so it was quickly abandoned once fax machines and email appeared. The last operational pneumatic mail network could still be seen in Prague’s main post office until 2002.
Fax Machines
The idea of scanning a document, converting it into signals, transmitting it, and reproducing the image on the other end became the fax machine.
The prototype was invented by Scottish clockmaker Alexander Bain, who in 1843 patented the first “recording telegraph” capable of transmitting images over wires. It scanned a metal plate with text using a needle and reproduced the copy on electrolytic paper.
The modern, affordable fax as we remember it appeared after the 1960s. It scanned a document, connected via a phone line, and sent tones that the receiving machine turned back into a (usually readable) thermal printout. Xerox (USA) and Ricoh (Japan) were among the first major manufacturers.
In Japan and Russia, the fax became a true national symbol of business and a mandatory fixture in any “respectable” office. In Japan, faxes remained popular longer because of kanji characters — it was easier to send handwritten notes.
Scanners and email eventually replaced fax machines almost entirely.
Pagers
Another iconic Russian symbol of the early 2000s — pagers — actually began in the 1950s when hospitals needed instant staff communication. The first device was created by Al Gross for a New York hospital.
Early pagers were simple beepers that emitted a tone. Soon numeric pagers appeared, and by the 1980s the first alphanumeric models arrived.
For numeric-only pagers, users developed a whole slang of codes: 07734 read upside-down spelled “hello,” 101 meant “call home urgently,” etc.
Pagers were displaced by mobile phones and SMS, though some hospitals in the US and UK still use them today for reliable on-site staff alerting.