Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872), US inventor of the electric telegraph and Morse code. Morse started his career as a painter, becoming the main founder and 1st president of the National Academy of Design. From 1832 he worked on the development of the electric telegraph, striving to increase its range. He demonstrated his code, with a series of dots and dashes representing each letter, in 1838. After gaining financial support, he transmitted the first telegraph message along the new line linking Washington DC and Baltimore, USA. The first message sent was What hath God wrought", in his code, on May 24th 1844."