The world’s first telegram was sent on May 24, 1844 by inventor Samuel Morse. The message, "What hath God wrought," was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore.

Guess what?  The telegram is now offically a thing of the past.  After 145 of telegram service, Western Union (now mostly a fnancial services company) is no longer in the telegram business (for obvious reasons). 

If you go to their website, and click on the word "Telegrams", you come to this page and get this message:

Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage.

That’s kinda sad, don’t you think?

Company spokesman Victor Chayet tells AP that Western Union still managed to move 20,000 telegrams in 2005, despite a cost of about $10 a message and a delivery structure in which your telegram was actually delivered by Airborne rather than by a spiffy Western Union courier.