First things first

    
In a few hours, it will be twitter's fifth birthday. On March 21, 2006, 9:50pm PST, Jack Dorsey sent out the first tweet ever: "just setting up my twttr". I did a little research and found some interesting things people said at the "first" events of human communication.

The first telegraph through a public line: May 24, 1844
Samuel Morse: "What hath God wrought"

The first successful bi-directional telephone transmission: March 10, 1876
Bell to Watson: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."

The first licensed radio broadcast: November 2, 1920
Leo Rosenburg: "This is KDKA, of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We shall now broadcast the election returns."

The first sentence said while standing on the surface of the moon: July 20, 1969
Neil Armstrong: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

The first online chat (via ARPANET link): October 29, 1969
UCLA (type): L
SRI (over the phone): Yes, we see the L.
UCLA (type): O
SRI (over the phone): Yes, we see the O.
UCLA (type): G
And the system crashed.

The first email sent across hosts: 1971
Ray Tomlinson: something like "QWERTYUIOP"... (Test messages were entirely forgettable and I have, therefore, forgotten them.)

The first SMS text message: December 3, 1992
Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis (via Vodafone GSM network): "Merry Christmas"