You call home to say the game ran late, and you'll be back at 4:00. You ask your friend to e-mail an assignment you forgot at school. How did people communicate over long distances before there were telephones and computers?

Usually they sent letters in the mail. But letters often took weeks to arrive. An inventor named Samuel Morse, born in 1791, put electricity and magnetism together. He created an electromagnet similar to the one shown in the picture.