From the Stone Age to the present, people have shown a definite need to send messages to one another despite being far away. In 1084 B.C., a chain of fires on mountaintops was used to relate the news of the fall of Troy to people in Greece. In the past, native people in the Americas used smoke from fires to transmit messages. They developed a code in which certain combinations had special meanings. For example, two parallel columns of smoke indicated the successful return of a war party. Almost anything that makes a noise has been used for signaling. Cyrus, an ancient Persian ruler, established lines of signal towers. At each one, people with powerful voices shouted a message to the next tower. A kind of drum talk is still uses a drum that can produce a high or low tone. Because the local dialect alternates in these tones, the sender is able to simulate speech with the drums. In modern times, people have communicated by letter, telegraph, an telephone. But no one method has become as widespread as quickly as the use of e-mail.