In 1952, shortly before his death, Joseph Stalin claimed that Russians invented the telegraph. More specifically, one Z. Y. Slonimsky, a dozen years before Americans did.

Now, we hate to agree with Psycho Uncle Joe, but in this case... he was correct. Sort of.

Stalin was probably not aware of the intricacies, but he wasn't talking about the telegraph per se, or even the electrical telegraph, which is credited to Samuel Morse in 1838. The telegraph in question is the duplex telegraph, which allowed bi-directional signals on the same wire. Its inventor was Joseph Baker Sterns in 1871... but Thomas Edison usually gets the credit, because he "borrowed" Stern's design, improved on it, and "invented" the quadruplex telegraph (four signals, not two) in 1874. Thomas Edison, ladies and gentlemen!

Well, with all apologies to Sterns (and none to Edison), Z. Y. Slonimski had them all beat. His design was documented all the way back in 1859, but was never fully implemented. It's not clear if Sterns and Edison were aware of Slonimsky's invention, but their work could be deemed derivative.

So who was Z. Y. Slonimski? Those initials stood for Zinovy Yakovlevich, which was the Russified name of Chaim Selig Slonimski, a Polish rabbi. A renaissance man, he published a newspaper, designed adding machines, dabbled in astronomy, and, yes, invented the duplex telegraph.

A rabbi invented the (duplex) telegraph. Now you understand why Stalin's statement was sort of correct?