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| RMS Titanic April 1912 |
Many people believe that the Morse code group SOS has a meaning and is an acronym. SOS became associated with phrases such as "save our ship", "save our souls", "stop other signals" or "sure of sinking".
The phrases were a later development, most likely used to help teach signalmen to remember parts of the Morse Code.
As the SOS signal is a prosign, its respective letters have no inherent meaning per se, it was simply chosen due to it being easy to remember.
SOS is the commonly used description for the international Morse code distress signal ( · · · — — — · · · ). This distress signal was first adopted by the German government in radio regulations effective April 1, 1905, and became the worldwide standard under the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention, which was signed on November 3, 1906 and became effective on July 1, 1908.
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| RMS Titanic Radio Room |
SOS remained the maritime radio distress signal until 1999, when it was replaced by the Global Maritime Distress Safety System.
In International Morse Code, three dits (shorts) form the letter S, and three dahs (longs) make the letter O, so "SOS" became an easy way to remember the correct order of the dits and dahs. In modern terminology, SOS is a Morse "procedural signal" or "prosign".
There was some resistance among the Marconi operators to the adoption of the new signal, and, as late as the April, 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, the ship's Marconi operators intermixed CQD (seek you or calling all stations) and SOS distress calls. However, in the interests of consistency and water safety, the use of CQD appears to have died out after this point.
Charles Trumball Hayden was an American businessman and probate judge. His influence was felt in the development of Arizona Territory where he helped found both the city of Tempe and Arizona State University. Hayden is also known as the father of U.S. Senator Carl Hayden.
Hayden was born on April 4, 1825 in Haydens, Windsor Township, Hartford, Connecticut to Joseph and Mary Hanks Hayden. Hayden's father died when he was six, leaving himself and his sister Anna to help his mother run the family farm. He completed his education at 16 and worked as a clerk for several years before leaving home in 1843. His departure was motivated in part by a lung ailment.
From Connecticut Hayden went to New York City, where he studied law, before beginning a series of teaching jobs in Kentucky, Indiana, and Missouri. While in Kentucky, Hayden was influenced by Henry Clay's vision of opening the West to settlement by the development of roads and canals. By 1847, he was working as a teamster hauling freight on the Santa Fe Trail.
Following ratification of the Gadsden Purchase, Hayden established a store in Tubac which served the nearby mines. By 1860, he had moved to Tucson and according to census records had assets worth $20,000. In addition to working as a merchant, Hayden also worked as a freighter and civic leader. With the creation of Arizona Territory, he added mail contractor to his list of duties. Finally, he was appointed a probate judge by Governor Goodwin and he achieved the title "judge".
Hayden remained in Tucson until 1873 when he moved to the Salt River valley. Local legend claims that while he was on a business trip from Tucson to Prescott, flood waters on the Salt River delayed him near the present location of Tempe, Arizona for several days. Using this time to explore the site, Hayden saw the potential to develop a new town at the site. In December 1870, Hayden published a notice claiming two sections along the south side of the Salt River "for milling, farming, and other purposes". He used the land to build a cable ferry, grist mill, general store, and other related businesses.
On October 4, 1876, at the age of 51, Hayden married Arkansas-born schoolteacher Sallie Davis in Nevada City, California. The couple would have four children, Carl Trumball, Sallie Davis, Anna Spenser, and Mary "Mapes" Calvert. Anna died when two-and-a-half years old while the three other children reached maturity.
Politically, Hayden made an unsuccessful run to be Arizona Territory's Congressional Delegate in 1874. This was followed in 1884 when Grover Cleveland considered him for Governor of Arizona Territory. In 1885, Hayden succeeded in having a former employee, John S. Armstrong, elected to the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature. Believing the territory's need lie primarily in educating new teachers, Hayden used his connection with Armstrong to lobby for the Territorial Normal School. Hayden even favored the normal school over the fiscally more lucrative insane asylum, arguing "Stockton, California was known to most people only as the place where insane people are confined" and that Tempe should not risk gaining a similar reputation. The normal school established in Tempe is now Arizona State University.
Hayden remained in Tempe for the rest of his life and died on February 5, 1900.
American Indians, Mormon pioneers, plants, animals, and others have depended on the life-giving water found at Pipe Spring.
When visiting Pipe Spring, your first stop will be the Pipe Spring National Monument-Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians Visitor Center and Museum.
This joint center was cooperatively funded and built, and is operated by the National Park Service and the Kaibab Paiute. The center serves as the entry to Pipe Spring National Monument, and provides exhibits about the people and cultures who have lived in this region for centuries.
In 1870, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) began construction of a fortified ranch house at Pipe Spring. The ranch house/fort was designed as both a headquarters for a tithing cattle ranch and as protection from Indian attacks. The Mormon settlers did not particularly fear the Paiute tribe, which at that time inhabited much of the Arizona Strip, but the Navajo, who would cross the Colorado River at low water and raid both the Paiutes and the settlers.
The fortified ranch house was constructed directly over Pipe Spring. The Mormons were only the latest group to be drawn to Pipe Spring, which had attracted people for centuries. The Ancient Puebloans (Anasazi) inhabited the area from approximately 1 A.D. to 1200 A.D. The Paiute tribe followed the Anasazi, and had lived in the Pipe Spring region for nearly three centuries by the time the European settlers began moving into this area.
Winsor Castle was the site of the first telegraph station in the state of Arizona. The transcontinental telegraph wire came through Salt Lake City in 1861, and immediately revolutionized communications. Information from Washington, D.C., or San Francisco that once took weeks or months to reach Utah now arrived in only a few minutes.
However, the majority of the Utah settlements were north and south of Salt Lake City.
Thus the transcontinental line, running generally east-west, initially did little to improve communications within the territory.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints decided to build its own adjunct line, dubbed the Deseret Telegraph, linking communities to the north and south of Salt Lake. Construction on this line started in 1866.
Brigham Young asked that each community with a telegraph station train one or more young person in the art of telegraphy.
