U.S. Patent Number 1647 was granted on this date in 1840 to Samuel Morse for his “Improvement in the mode of communicating information by signals by the application of electro-magnetism.” It was for the signals, the “dots and dashes”—the “Morse Code,” as it was referred to later—that was used in communicating via the telegraph.

The idea of the telegraph, as well as the idea that such a communications invention was needed, was pervasive on both sides of the Atlantic: no one inventor can truly be credited with the invention. Several inventors, Morse included, worked independently of each other in designing and constructing the machines and laying out longer and longer lengths of wire to test them.
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“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.”—a proclamation read by Major General Gordon Granger at Galveston, Texas, June 19, 1865

 
Today is Juneteenth, the celebration of the abolition of slavery in the United States, first celebrated in Texas on this date in 1865. It is officially recognized as a holiday till this day in most but not all of the United States.
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Sir Paul McCartney is 74 today.

That is sufficient reason for this:
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