How SOS became the world’s distress call

It doesn’t mean ‘Save Our Ship’ — in fact, it doesn’t stand for anything. It is just a very recognizable signal in almost any form.

SOS was invented in Germany in 1905 for use as a distress signal in Morse code: Three dots, three dashes, three dots. If you keep doing the pattern, it doesn’t matter where you start.

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Plus, if you are stranded on a mountain, you can create an SOS, and it can be read backward or upside down, unlike HELP for example.

Today, digital communications have made Morse code, the signal system made up of dots and dashes, mostly obsolete, but SOS can still be written with nearly universal understanding.