As often happens with revolutionary inventions, the radio telegraph was made with initial skepticism. Few doubted it worked, but the practical applications were far from clear, even as its increasing adoption on ships at sea helped a few of them out of trouble. Still, even the critics were forced to admit radio signalling can save lives when it saved 1,400 of them from a shipwreck off the Massachusetts coast.

On this day, January 23, 1909, a telegraphed distress call came in from the captain of the RMS Republic, which in dense fog collided with an Italian ship Florida. The telegraph signal was relayed by the nearby Nantucket station, and a nearby British Royal Navy ship steamed to help the victims. Both the colliding ships were heavily damaged, but those who survived the initial crash were evacuated by the RMS Baltic without incident.

The distress call broadcast by the Republic was not SOS. Although that international request for assistance was standardized in an agreement three years earlier, many continued using an earlier telegraph code “CQD”  – CQ recognized as a call to all stations, and D meaning “distress.” As late as 1912, when the Titanic sank, both codes were used – the Titanic itself broadcast both CQD and SOS.