- 1792 – Claude Chappe invents “telegraph” of signal flags on towerså
- 1825 — William Sturgeon invents electromagnet
- 1830 – Joseph Henry uses electric current to ring bell
- 1835 – Samuel Morse uses electric current to print letters on paper
- 1835 – Havas news agency formed in Paris; becomes AFP in 1944
- 1837 – Charles Wheatstone invents version of telegraph
- 1838 – Samuel Morse patents electromagnetic telegraph and code in US
- 1844 – Morse demonstrates telegraph in Washington DC; first message: What Hath God Wrought? (Numbers 23:23)
- 1846 – News co-op formed to cover Mexican war; telegraph expands
- 1848 – New York harbor co-op, forerunner of NY Associated Press
- 1849 – Bernard Wolff forms Telegraphisches Bureau in Germany
- 1850 – US has 10,000 miles of telegraph lines
- 1851 – Competing telegraph companies vie for domination
- 1851 – Paul Reuter opens Reuters telegraph news service in London
- 1851 – Seven newspapers form NY Associated Press
- 1854 – Thoreau sees telegraph as “improved means to an unimproved end”
- 1855 – Western Union formed from competing telegraph companies
- 1858 – First trans-Atlantic telegraph built; fails in 26 days
- 1861 – Transcontinental telegraph New York to California
- 1862 – Western AP formed; becomes national AP in 1892
- 1865 – Havas, Reuters and Wolff form European news cartel
- 1865 – Int’l Telegraph Union formed; now part of United Nations
- 1866 – Permanent trans-Atlantic telegraph link between US and Britain
- 1866 – Western Union merges with last competitor, American Telegraph
- 1866 – First Congressional investigation into telegraph monopoly
- 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell patents telephone
1879 — National Bell Telephone Company formed - 1882 – United Press wire service formed
- 1892 – Western AP becomes Associated Press, national organization
- 1893 – AP gets exclusive contract with Reuters for European news
1893 - Bell patent expires, competing phone companies spring up - 1894 – Cutthroat competition for phone service
- 1897 – United Press bankrupt
- 1899 – AT&T becomes parent company of Bell Telephone
- 1900 – AP loses anti-trust case in Illinois, reincorporates in New York
- 1907 – A new United Press Association (later UPI) competes with AP
- 1908 – AT&T begins major public relations campaign to justify monopoly
- 1908 – AT&T buys Western Union
- 1913 – AT&T- Justice Dept. Kingsbury Commitment OKs regulated monopoly
- 1913 – AT&T sells Western Union as part of the Kingsbury Commitment
- 1915 – First transatlantic telephone call
- 1926 – NBC network uses telephone lines to connect radio stations
- 1933 – Singing telegrams introduced as a novelty
- 1935 – AP begins sending Wire-photos to news organizations
- 1930s –AT&T survives anti-trust scrutiny due to continuing PR campaign
- 1933 — Associated Press pressured to stop news service to radio networks
- 1945 – AP loses anti-trust case, ends exclusive memberships
- 1947 – Bell Labs scientists develop the transistor
- 1963 – AT&T helps launch telephone satellite Telstar
- 1971 – DARPA offers AT&T ownership and management of the computer internet; AT&T declines
- 1974 – Western Union sends up satellite Westar
- 1983 — AT&T phone monopoly broken up into regional systems
- 1984 — computers with modems end media use of telegrams
- 2010 – Justice Dept approves AP news index