Obligatory “There was a period of time where Abraham Lincoln could have sent a fax to a Samurai” joke.
That sounds wrong, but I don’t know enough about samurai’s fax technology to dispute it.
It’s mostly a “well, technically” kind of thing. First prototypes were around since the 1840s but the first commercial telefax service was introduced in February 1865, a little under two months before Lincoln was killed. Samurai were around until the late 1860s or early 1870s. I can’t quite find when the first telefax machine was operated in Japan but 1928 shows up on some lists.
So yeah, Lincoln could have sent a fax to a samurai if they both had traveled to France just a few weeks before Lincoln’s death.
This should be a TIL post in of itself haha
And there’s no record that they did. Talk about missing a great opportunity
Is it even a joke if it’s true?
This is what the internet calls jokes now haha I don’t like it either.
Kind of makes sense, since it was just an extension of the existing telegraph technology.
