Josh Bolan, age 14, of Johnson City, Tenn., for his question:

WHO INVENTED THE TELEGRAPH?

In England, two physicists, William Cook and Charles Wheatstone, patented a telegraph in 1837 that worked by electromagnetism. In the United States, a painter and inventor named Samuel F.B. Morse patented an improved version in 1840.

Morse also developed a code system using dots and dashes, which came to be known as the Morse code.

Congress appropriated $30,000 for a test line in 1843. It ran between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md. In 1844, Morse's telegraph dispatched the first wired news story from Baltimore to Washington: the Democratic National Convention had nominated James K. Polk for President.

Newspapers started using the Morse invention almost at once.