SMS: The invention of text messaging

In October 1984, as the market for mobile phones was just opening up, one man decided it would be useful if the new technology could be used to send and receive short, electronic messages.

But colleagues of Friedhelm 'Fred' Hillebrand - an engineer for Germany's Deutsche Telekom - told him the system's 160-character limit for text messages rendered it "useless".

After spending an evening typing-up birthday, Christmas and fax messages Fred proved them wrong, and within 20 years the SMS or short message service had changed the way we communicate around the world.

Fred Hillebrand tells Jacqueline Paine how text messaging very nearly didn't take off until it was discovered by young people.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: News message on a mobile phone display. Credit: Blick/RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Show less