telegram

At the time, the Tana family was vacationing on a remote Yugoslav island when a telegram arrived: “The restaurant burned down. Call me, Pearl,” recalls Katerina Tana, one of Dan Tana’s daughters.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026

Within hours of carrying the first telegram across the English Channel in 1850, the earliest “submarine telegraph”—27 miles of copper wire wrapped in a rubbery substance called gutta percha—was broken by a fishing trawler.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026

The author sent a telegram to his mother back home in French-controlled Algeria: “I’ve never missed you so much.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026

“The Queen and Elton John sent me a telegram of congratulations - my mum and dad were interviewed all week - it was a big thing.”

From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2024

To draft a telegram, you wrote down the numbers for each character you wanted, and then you sent the string of numbers.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

Stefansson’s telegrams to the dead men’s families are perfunctory.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025

Morecambe's collection includes telegrams from the late Prince Philip and letters from Margaret Thatcher and fellow comics Ronnie Barker and Tommy Cooper.

From BBC ● Nov. 18, 2024

At its center, a young, unnamed telegraph operator watches as the beautiful, married Lady Bradeen sends flurries of telegrams, hoping that no one will notice the messages to the dashing Captain Everard.

From Slate ● May 27, 2024

“I’ve gotten thousands of letters and telegrams from people supporting me.”

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 11, 2024

Even as Garfield's health worsened, Brown sent out telegrams saying: “Rumors concerning unfavorable change in President's condition largely sensational,” and “Surgeons believe President is prospectively better than at any time since shooting.”

From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow

Toward the end of 1926, Herman Mankiewicz, the screenwriter who would co-father “Citizen Kane,” telegrammed his friend Ben Hecht, the newspaperman who was finding himself between gigs and behind on his rent.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2023

Nesbit had a serious relationship with the author Donald Barthelme before she married Gilman, and one day, Barthelme telegrammed her from Europe.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 14, 2023

“Hold your hand out you silly girl,” McCartney telegrammed one music critic, Penny Valentine, quoting the Beatles’ “Martha My Dear,” after she called his first solo album “a bitter disappointment.”

From New York Times ● Dec. 6, 2022

At one point, after the mega-success of the "Ringo" LP, no less than John Lennon famously telegrammed Starr, saying “Congratulations. How dare you? And please write me a hit song.”

From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2019

Mrs. Guinea had telegrammed, "Is there a boy in the case?"

From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

In 1916, Charles Evans Hughes waited two weeks before telegramming his concession to Woodrow Wilson, who noted that the message was “a little moth-eaten when it got here but quite legible.”

From Slate ● Nov. 7, 2012