The fax machine is often dismissed as obsolete technology, a relic of the 1980s office that should have disappeared alongside the rolodex and the overhead projector. That narrative misses something important. Fax technology has been shaping communication for nearly two centuries, and some of the most consequential documents in modern history traveled over fax lines at decisive moments.
Here is a look at some of the most notable faxes ever sent and why the technology behind them still matters.
The First Fax: 1843
The story of fax begins with Scottish inventor Alexander Bain, who patented an “electric printing telegraph” in 1843, more than 30 years before Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. Bain’s device used synchronized pendulums to scan and reproduce images across a telegraph wire. While primitive by modern standards, the core concept of transmitting a document as a series of scanned signals is the same principle that underlies fax technology today.
Frederick Bakewell improved on Bain’s design in 1848, demonstrating a “copying telegraph” at the Great Exhibition in London. These early devices were laboratory curiosities rather than practical communication tools, but they established the foundational technology that would eventually become indispensable to global business.
The First Commercially Used Fax Service: 1865
By 1865, Giovanni Caselli had developed the Pantelegraph, a device capable of transmitting handwritten documents and drawings over telegraph lines. French Emperor Napoleon III was reportedly an early user. A commercial service running between Paris and Lyon became the world’s first operational fax network, transmitting over 5,000 faxes in its first year of operation.
This was decades before the telephone existed as a practical technology, making fax the first system capable of transmitting complex documents over long distances.
Weather Maps and Scientific Communication
The first weather map transmitted by fax in the United States was sent in 1948 by the Associated Press Wirephoto network. The ability to transmit visual information across distances was a transformative development for meteorology, news media, and scientific communication. Before this capability existed, weather analysis and reporting depended entirely on telegraph descriptions of conditions rather than actual visual maps.
The Fax That Helped Shape Japanese Business Culture
Japan became one of the world’s most intense adopters of fax technology, a preference that persists to this day. The Japanese language, with its thousands of characters, was difficult to adapt to early keyboard-based communication systems. Fax solved the problem by transmitting handwritten documents directly, preserving the cultural and professional significance of handwritten correspondence. Japan’s deep integration of fax into business and government workflows is a direct result of this technological fit.
The Munich Olympics: 1972
During the 1972 Munich Olympics crisis, fax technology was one of the primary tools used to transmit photographs and documentation between news organizations and governments in real time. The speed of fax transmission compared to alternatives available at the time made it a critical component of crisis communication infrastructure.
The Iran-Contra Investigation: 1986-1987
The Iran-Contra affair produced a significant volume of faxed documents that became central to congressional and criminal investigations. The paper trail created by fax transmissions played a direct role in establishing what communications had taken place between which parties and when. This case illustrated the evidentiary value of fax records, a quality that continues to make fax relevant in legal and regulatory contexts today.
Tiananmen Square: 1989
During the 1989 pro-democracy protests in China, fax machines became an unexpected tool of political communication. When Chinese government censors restricted news coverage and communication, overseas Chinese students and activists used fax networks to transmit news reports, photographs, and messages into and out of China. Fax machines at universities, businesses, and embassies became conduits for information that could not travel through other channels. The Chinese government reportedly attempted to block fax numbers as part of its response to the crisis.
Desert Storm and Military Fax Communication
During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, fax technology played a documented role in military logistics and command communication. The ability to transmit maps, orders, intelligence reports, and supply requests with a verifiable physical record made fax a preferred channel for certain types of military communication even as digital networks were becoming available.
Healthcare and the Enduring Role of Fax
Healthcare has become one of the final strongholds of fax technology, and for good reasons rooted in regulation, security, and legal requirements. HIPAA requires that protected health information be transmitted through channels with verifiable security controls. Fax, when implemented through a properly secured digital platform, satisfies these requirements in ways that standard email does not.
The shift from physical fax machines to digital fax platforms has modernized the technology without abandoning its core value: secure, verifiable document transmission with a complete audit trail. Healthcare systems today transmit prescriptions, lab results, referrals, and patient records via digital fax solutions that combine the legal standing of traditional fax with the efficiency of cloud-based infrastructure.
Lane’s Fax 2.0 platform combines the proven security of fax transmission with fully digital delivery, allowing healthcare organizations to maintain compliance while moving beyond physical hardware.
Why Fax Persists
The history of fax is a history of a technology that solved real problems and kept solving new ones as the world changed. From Napoleon III’s court to pandemic-era healthcare paperwork, fax has provided something that other communication technologies struggle to replicate: a legally recognized, encrypted, point-to-point document transmission with an auditable delivery record.
Digital fax platforms have brought this capability into the modern era without sacrificing what made fax valuable in the first place. Organizations looking to understand why fax remains relevant in 2025 can explore Lane’s full suite of digital faxing solutions and frequently asked questions about secure document transmission.
The famous faxes of history were not accidents. They were the result of a technology uniquely suited to transmitting the kind of information that matters most, quickly, securely, and with a record that lasts.
