The transatlantic telegraph cable
Messages cross the ocean in minutes instead of weeks
See it on the timeline →In depth
After repeated failures from 1857, the Great Eastern succeeded in 1866. The price was enormous — one message cost the equivalent of several months' wages for a worker — but the effect on finance, diplomacy and news was immediate. World markets began moving in step for the first time. By 1900 a global cable network reached nearly every continent, largely controlled from London, and today's internet follows strikingly similar routes.
For children
Before, a message from Europe to America had to sail for two weeks. Then a cable was laid along the bottom of the Atlantic, and suddenly it took minutes. It is the same idea as the fibre cables that give you the internet today.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org