End of the Line

AFP

India's famous and ubiquitous telegram service, the center to so many novels and Bollywood movies, is ending on July 14. The telegraph was introduced into the country by a British doctor and inventor in 1850, and it has played a key role in some major events in Indian history. Even today, some 5,000 telegrams are sent every day, but with the rise of the cell phone, the service has become more and more redundant: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2013/0614/India-to-send-world-s-last-telegram.-Stop
   Photographs from the waning days of India's telegraph service (slideshow): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-22903185
   And speaking of the telegraph, you may have thought it was all about Samuel Finley Breese Morse, but really, it all began in France, with Napoleon and le système Chappe (story, video): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22909590