When did the first text message get sent?

On 3 December 1992 Neil Papworth, a young engineer, sent the message Merry Christmas from a computer to a mobile phone on the Vodafone network in the United Kingdom. Because early phones had no keyboards, he had to type the message on a computer. The recipient could read it but not reply, since sending texts from handsets came a little later. The service, known as SMS, allowed messages of up to 160 characters. From these humble beginnings texting grew into one of the most widely used forms of communication on the planet.