Getting the message across.
To tell the truth, I can't fully vouch for the accuracy of this claim, but if the various web sources I've come across know what they're talking about (which isn't necessarily the case) today was a double-barreled day in communications history. It was on this day, in 1914, that transcontinental (make that North America) telephone service began. Then, six years later on this same day, the first transcontinental (also North America) airmail delivery took place.
Again, I'm not fully sure about the details. Some sources simply tell us that "two people" spoke on the phone from New York to San Francisco, while others tell us that the conversation took place between Thomas A. Watson (San Francisco) and Alexander Graham Bell (New York) in a repeat performance, made undoubtedly for the history books, or for the glossy magazines of their day, of their truly historic first telephone conversation of 1876. Other sources report that the first transcontinental telephone line was completed in 1915, which would suggest that the Watson-Bell conversation was a bit premature, but again, I don't know the precise details.
As to that second event, it also took place between San Francisco and New York, but the accuracy of its date is also in question. Transcontinental airmail was flown by relay, and at least one source tells us that only in 1921 were there legs of these relays that were flown at night. So it's unclear as to just what that mail flight entailed. Still, two events of this stature on one day, even if the accuracy of the date is in question, is quite impressive.
Still, we have to admit that both of these events belong on a timeline for a rather straight and narrow form of communication. They're not part of a networked, associative, model which I usually prefer to celebrate. Just the same, there's always something to be said for getting quickly from here to there, and the shortest distance between two points (if it's short you're looking for) is still a straight line. And today's date seems to hold a place of honor along that line.
Go to: My greatest fear.