Morse Code Day

April 27 is Morse Code Day

Morse Code is a means of non verbal communication that uses dots and dashes for letters of the English alphabet. It can be transmitted as electrical pulses or tapped, like on a table. It was Invented by Samuel Morse and his assistant Alfred Vail, to be used with their invention, the telegraph. The telegraph was a device that transmitted messages via electricity. Using devices that sent and received electrical pulses of dots and dashes, that were then translated into words using Morse Code.  

By the mid-nineteenth century, telegraphy had acquired its present definition as a device for converting messages into electric impulses that traveled instantaneously by wire to distant receivers, where they were converted back into readable text.

Morse Code figures prominently in quite a few novels such as:  

Here's a more detailed look at these examples and others:

• We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer incorporated fictional documents and internet conspiracy theories with an old house and time travel loop. It is interesting to note that the book started as a series of posts on Reddit.

• The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, the children’s book is not about Morse Code though the code is used by characters in the book. 

• The Promised Neverland, a Japanses film and manga by by Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demiz, in which the characters discover Morse Code on a virtual navigation map.

• Radio Rescue by Lynne Barasch, in which a radio operator is rescued. It is part of a series called Ready Set Learn.