We Used to Wait Quiz | Specialized History

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1. Here in Australia, the early British colonists had to wait for a ship to arrive from England to bring news of loved ones back home. Approximately how long did the voyage from England to Australia take in the late 18th century?

Answer: 8 months

The First Fleet, ships intended to establish the first British settlement in what is now known as Australia, left Portsmouth on 13 May, 1787, and arrived at Port Jackson, now Sydney, between the 18th and the 20th of January, 1788. The voyage took between 250 and 252 days, which is representative of the times taken by other vessels at that time.

This is roughly 36 weeks, or a bit over 8 months. Of course, sailing ships' voyages were dependent on the winds, so times were rather variable, but not enough so as to make any of the other options feasible.

2. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" is often said to be the motto of the United States Post Office. About the courier service of what ancient Asiatic empire were those words originally written?

Answer: Persian Empire

This motto is inscribed on the James Farley Post Office, New York City's main post office, built in 1912. Nevertheless, it is not an official US Post Office motto. It is a paraphrase of a description by Herodotus of Helicarnassus in his "Histories" (written in the 5th century BCE) of the Persian empire's courier service.

3. The telegraph, the first form of electrical telecommunications, was developed with the contribution of a number of scientists. Which of these is recognized as being responsible for the first commercial telegraph system?

Answer: William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone

Schilling developed a telegraph capable of transmissions between rooms of his house in 1832, but never developed it commercially. Cooke became familiar with it during a visit to Heidelberg in 1836, and returned to London, where he and Wheatstone continued to work on the device. They patented it as an alarm system in 1837, and demonstrated its long-distance use that same year, on July 25. Commercial use started in 1839, and in 1845 a telegraph message from Slough to Paddington alerting police to the fact that a suspect had fled there by train is thought to have been the first time that the telegraph was used to catch a murderer.

Samuel Morse is more famous (especially to Americans), because he pursued the development further, and developed the code for transmitting information that bears his name, but he did not demonstrate his telegraph until 1838. Marconi is associated with the development of radio, not telegraphs.

4. The Pony Express is legendary for establishing rapid mail delivery service to the western parts of the United States in the 19th century. During what years did this service operate?

Answer: 1860-1861

Believe it or not, the Pony Express only operated for 18 months, from April, 1860 until October, 1861. It involved using relays of horseback riders to carry messages between St Joseph, MO and Sacramento, CA. While it operated, it took approximately ten days to get messages from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, with telegraphs covering the first stretch to St Joseph, and riders the remainder of the journey.

The completion of the transcontinental telegraph led to the end of the Pony Express. While it operated, it involved 120 riders (including the famous William 'Buffalo Bill' Cody), riding about 400 horses between 184 changeover stations.

5. Ignoring the use of homing pigeons, the first mail to be delivered by air was sent from Dover, England by balloon to a point near Calais, France. The letter was from William Franklin, son of Benjamin, to his son William who was serving as a diplomatic assistant in Paris to Benjamin. In what year did this occur?

Answer: 1785

Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries carried the message across the English Channel in a hot air balloon on January 7, 1785. William Franklin, an illegitimate son of Ben Franklin, was a Loyalist, who had opposed the American Revolution, and entered self-imposed exile to Britain in 1782.

His illegitimate son, William Temple Franklin, was generally called Temple, and worked for his grandfather during the Revolution.

6. Without entering the dispute as to who invented the telephone, a device whose ultimate form has been shaped by the contributions of many over the years, let's consider the telephone switchboard, which allows the establishment of telephone networks. This was invented in 1876 by which Hungarian inventor?

Answer: Tivadar Puskas

All of these were deeply involved in the development of the telephone as we know it, but it was the Hungarian Tivadar Puskas (working for Thomas Edison) who patented a telephone switchboard in 1876. Without his invention, it would have been necessary to provide wire connections between every pair of telephones before they could be used for communication.

The first commercial exchange, which could handle a staggering two simultaneous conversations, was built in New Haven, CT in 1878 by George W. Coy.

7. The first broadcast medium to be developed was radio. It uses electromagnetic radiation sent from a transmitter, which is received by an antenna, and changed back into sound. In what year was the first radio news broadcast?

Answer: 1920

The very first news program was broadcast on August 31, 1920 in Detroit, MI. The station that broadcast it (WWJ, 950 AM) continues to be an all-news station into the 21st century. The AM in the station's name refers to the fact that its signal is amplitude modulated - the radio wave's amplitude varies in order to transmit the changing information.

The other common form of modulation used in broadcast radio is FM, frequency modulation. As a rule, FM produces a better quality of sound reproduction than AM, but atmospheric factors means it cannot be transmitted over as large a distance.

These are both part of what is now referred to as analogue technology, and are being superseded by digital technologies in the 21st centuries.

8. You can't be out of touch, even if you're not in your office. The solution, in 1950, was the pager, a device that could receive messages a few symbols long, such as the phone number you need to call. What professional group were the first to use pagers in New York City?

Answer: Physicians

The first practical pager network was established in 1950 by NYC physicians. As long as they were within 40 km (25 mi) of the office which managed their paging system, they could receive a short message at any time. For a cost, of course. By the 1980s, having a pager attached to your belt had become a status symbol. Your pager showed the world that you needed to be in contact at all times, and were valued, unlike the rest of the world who could still rely on landline telephones to be contacted.

More change was on the way!

9. Mail delivery by any method that involves the physical movement of an item containing information is often referred to as 'snail mail'. What electronic communication is widely perceived to have replaced it in the 21st century?

Answer: Email

Email refers to electronic mail, messages sent across the Internet or through other computer networks such as a corporation's intranet. It allows almost instantaneous communication to almost anyone (or to many people at once) almost anywhere (assuming they are watching for incoming messages).

It is amazing how many people do not realize that it is a public medium, and that their messages will be available to many more people than their intended target. The Wikipedia article on email includes the amusing note "Emails can be used for inappropriate content. You should not have an email account under the age of 100." The wisdom of age is finally appreciated.

10. It's the 21st century, and everyone carries a portable phone around with them, not only to make and receive phone calls, but for SMS messages, Tweeting, downloading music, and the list goes on. Which of these terms does NOT refer to one of these devices?

Answer: landline

A landline telephone is one which is based on traditional telephone wires to transmit the signals. While they can be cordless, using a radio signal for the final stage of transmission, they are fundamentally different from the devices which are based on radio transmissions.

As well as sending and receiving traditional voice messages, modern devices typically support text messaging, email, Internet downloads, wireless connections such as infra-red and Bluetooth, and photography. My phone today has more computing capacity than the room-filling computer I used to analyse chemistry experiments in 1970.

Source: Author looney_tunes

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

We Used to Wait Trivia Quiz

Over the years, we have grown used to waiting for increasingly short periods of time to receive communications.

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