INVENTOR

Claude Chappe

1763 - 1805

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Claude Chappe (French: [klod ʃap]; 25 December 1763 – 23 January 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore system that eventually spanned all of France. His system consisted of a series of towers, each within line of sight of others, each supporting a wooden mast with two crossarms on pivots that could be placed in various positions. The operator in a tower moved the arms to a sequence of positions, spelling out text messages in semaphore code. The operator in the next tower read the message through a telescope, then passed it on to the next tower. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Claude Chappe is the 73rd most popular inventor (up from 74th in 2019), the 883rd most popular biography from France (up from 910th in 2019) and the 11th most popular French Inventor.

Claude Chappe was a French inventor who is most famous for inventing the Chappe telegraph. The Chappe telegraph was a system of semaphore that used a series of towers with movable arms to send messages.

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Among INVENTORS

Among inventors, Claude Chappe ranks 73 out of 426Before him are Alberto Santos-Dumont, John Deere, Henry Fox Talbot, Josephine Cochrane, Les Paul, and Ruth Handler. After him are George Eastman, Léon Theremin, Jacques Piccard, James Naismith, John Browning, and Alois Senefelder.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1763, Claude Chappe ranks 8Before him are Charles XIV John of Sweden, Józef Poniatowski, Jean Paul, Jacques Charles, Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, and Jean Victor Marie Moreau. After him are Kobayashi Issa, Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, Guillaume Brune, Augustin Robespierre, Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen, and Xavier de Maistre. Among people deceased in 1805, Claude Chappe ranks 6Before him are Friedrich Schiller, Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, Luigi Boccherini, Isabelle de Charrière, and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. After him are Maria Theresa of Savoy, Aloys I, Prince of Liechtenstein, Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Denmark, and Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis.

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In France

Among people born in France, Claude Chappe ranks 883 out of 6,770Before him are Edmond Rostand (1868), Jean Froissart (1337), Adelaide of Maurienne (1092), Antoine Galland (1646), Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725), and Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804). After him are Robert-François Damiens (1715), Louis the Blind (880), Ferdinand Cheval (1836), Vincent Cassel (1966), Jacques Pierre Brissot (1754), and Sigismund of Burgundy (500).

Among INVENTORS In France

Among inventors born in France, Claude Chappe ranks 11Before him are Nicéphore Niépce (1765), Denis Papin (1647), Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752), Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (1725), Louis Blériot (1872), and Louis Renault (1877). After him are Jacques de Vaucanson (1709), Alphonse Bertillon (1853), André-Jacques Garnerin (1769), Charles-Émile Reynaud (1844), Étienne-Jules Marey (1830), and Clément Ader (1841).