On September 1, 1949, the opening of the Telephotography Service took place at the Central Telegraph Office of Athens, located at Megaro Melas in Kotzias Square.

The telegraphy system, which appeared for the first time in Greece, was owned by the English company Cable & Wireless, which was responsible for conducting international telegraphy in the country, while its operation was to be shared equally with the State.

Through this pioneering system, which was based on the use of the lamp and photocells, photographs and manuscripts could be sent to and from abroad 'at the very least since until then photographs had been sent to Greece and from Greece abroad by air', as the newspaper To Vima reported the day after the inauguration. The service served almost exclusively the needs of news photojournalism, although it did not exclude the sending of photographs by private individuals.

The Telecommunications Museum has a unique collection of 13,320 telephotographs dating from the establishment of the telephotography service in 1949 to 1988. The archive has been sorted into 11 subject categories and is fully digitised.

*The image shows American actress Dorothy Hart (1922-2004). It is the first test telephotograph, sent on 17 September 1949 from New York to Athens.