Samuel Morse never intended to be an inventor. He was quite happy and successful in his life as an artist. He was an art teacher at New York University, had sold many paintings, and even founded the National Academy of Design. Morse was friends with famous people including Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette, and the author of The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper. His most famous work of art is Gallery of the Louvre, which features Cooper, his wife, and their daughter in the back left corner of the painting.

Morse turned to invention after a terrible tragedy. While in Washington, DC, (working on a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette) he received a letter with a message that his wife was near death. Morse raced back to his home in Connecticut, but he was too late. The letter had been delayed in reaching him; his wife Lucretia had died and was already buried. Grief-stricken, Morse was determined to develop a faster way of communicating information over long distances. He created the modern telegraph, and the system of Morse Code to communicate over an electrical wire.

You can view Morse's telegraph at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. His Gallery of the Louvre painting is owned by the Terra Foundation, but is set to be on view through August at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.

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