Who is credited with the invention of the telegraph and in what year?

Samuel Morse is credited with the invention of the telegraph, which he developed along with a system of dots and dashes known as Morse code. The first successful demonstration of the telegraph occurred in 1844 when Morse sent the message "What hath God wrought" from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. This event marked a significant milestone in communication technology, allowing messages to be sent over long distances almost instantaneously, revolutionizing personal and commercial communication in the years that followed.

The contributions of Morse were pivotal, not only for his invention of the telegraph itself but also for the encoding system that became synonymous with it. Although other inventors contributed to similar technologies, Morse's work is recognized as the foundation for the telegraph as it is known today.