January 7:

1789 : First U.S. presidential election

On this day in 1789, America's first presidential
election is held. Voters cast ballots to choose state
electors; only white men who owned property were
allowed to vote. As expected, George Washington won
the election and was sworn into office on April 30,
1789.

As it did in 1789, the United States still uses the
Electoral College system, established by the U.S.
Constitution, which today gives all American citizens
over the age of 18 the right to vote for electors, who
in turn vote for the president. The president and vice
president are the only elected federal officials
chosen by the Electoral College instead of by direct
popular vote.

Today political parties usually nominate their slate
of electors at their state conventions or by a vote of
the party's central state committee, with party
loyalists often being picked for the job. Members of
the U.S. Congress, though, can’t be electors. Each
state is allowed to choose as many electors as it has
senators and representatives in Congress. The District of Columbia has 3 electors. During a presidential
election year, on Election Day (the first Tuesday
after the first Monday in November), the electors from
the party that gets the most popular votes are elected
in a winner-take-all-system, with the exception of
Maine and Nebraska, which allocate electors
proportionally. In order to win the presidency, a
candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes out
of a possible 538.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in
December of a presidential election year, each state's
electors meet, usually in their state capitol, and
simultaneously cast their ballots nationwide. This is
largely ceremonial: Because electors nearly always
vote with their party, presidential elections are
essentially decided on Election Day. Although electors
aren't constitutionally mandated to vote for the
winner of the popular vote in their state, it is
demanded by tradition and required by law in 26 states
and the District of Columbia (in some states,
violating this rule is punishable by $1,000 fine).
Historically, over 99 percent of all electors have
cast their ballots in line with the voters. On January
6, as a formality, the electoral votes are counted
before Congress and on January 20, the commander in
chief is sworn into office.

Critics of the Electoral College argue that the
winner-take-all system makes it possible for a
candidate to be elected president even if he gets
fewer popular votes than his opponent. This happened
in the elections of 1876, 1888 and 2000. However,
supporters contend that if the Electoral College were
done away with, heavily populated states such as
California and Texas might decide every election and
issues important to voters in smaller states would be
ignored.

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January 6:
1838 : Morse demonstrates telegraph

On this day in 1838, Samuel Morse's telegraph system
is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell
Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a
device which used electric impulses to transmit
encoded messages over a wire, would eventually
revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching
the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in
Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he was interested in art, as well as
electricity, still in its infancy at the time. After
college, Morse became a painter. In 1832, while
sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly
discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for
an electric telegraph. He had no idea that other
inventors were already at work on the concept.

Morse spent the next several years developing a
prototype and took on two partners, Leonard Gale and
Alfred Vail, to help him. In 1838, he demonstrated his
invention using Morse code, in which dots and dashes
represented letters and numbers.
In 1843, Morse finally convinced a skeptical Congress
to fund the construction of the first telegraph line
in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to
Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official
telegram over the line, with the message: "What hath
God wrought!"

Over the next few years, private companies, using
Morse's patent, set up telegraph lines around the
Northeast. In 1851, the New York and Mississippi
Valley Printing Telegraph Company was founded; it
would later change its name to Western Union. In 1861,
Western Union finished the first transcontinental line
across the United States. Five years later, the first
successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean
was constructed and by the end of the century
telegraph systems were in place in Africa, Asia and
Australia.

Because telegraph companies typically charged by the
word, telegrams became known for their succinct
prose--whether they contained happy or sad news. The
word "stop," which was free, was used in place of a
period, for which there was a charge. In 1933, Western
Union introduced singing telegrams. During World War
II, Americans came to dread the sight of Western Union
couriers because the military used telegrams to inform
families about soldiers' deaths.

Over the course of the 20th century, telegraph
messages were largely replaced by cheap long-distance
phone service, faxes and email. Western Union
delivered its final telegram in January 2006.

Samuel Morse died wealthy and famous in New York City
on April 2, 1872, at age 80.

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