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French inventor, he created the semaphore visual telegraph.
Claude Chappe converted an old idea into a reality by inventing the semaphore visual telegraph.
His brother Ignace Chappe (1760–1829), a member of the Legislative Assembly during the French Revolution, strongly supported Claude’s proposal for a visual signal line between Paris and Lille, near the war front. With the Assembly’s backing, the Chappes built a series of towers on heights between the two cities. Each tower was equipped with a pair of telescopes, one pointing in either direction, and with a two-arm semaphore (a word derived by Chappe from the Greek for “bearing a sign”). Each arm of the semaphore could assume seven clearly visible angular positions, making possible 49 combinations that were assigned to the alphabet and a number of other symbols. In August 1794 the Chappe semaphore brought to Paris in less than an hour the news of the capture of Condé-sur-l’Escaut from the Austrians. Other lines were built, notably between Paris and Toulon, and the system was soon widely copied elsewhere in Europe. Chappe was accorded the title telegraph engineer, but when rivals contested the priority of his invention, his natural tendency to melancholia was apparently deepened; in a fit of depression he committed suicide.
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variant spelling:
CHAPPE, Claude
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Curriculum vitae
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* 25.12.1763
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Brulon, France
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born
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1775
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Etude au collège royal de La Flèche. Conception d'un appareil en bois formé de trois règles pour envoyer des signaux à ses frères dans le pensionnat voisin.
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1790
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Mise au point d'un système télégraphique : premiers essais et présentation de l'invention auprès des élus de l'Assemblée Législative.
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1793
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Nommé Ingénieur des Télégraphes par décret de la Convention, du 26 juillet 1793.
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1793 - 1794
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Construction d'une ligne de 240 km de Paris à Lille.
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1794
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Premiers messages envoyés avec succès entre Paris et Lille.
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† 23.01.1805
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Suicide
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