Today on Discovery Enterprise we present Modern Marvels “The Transatlantic Cable” which tells the story of Cyrus West Field and his epic struggle to lay the first transatlantic cable between the Old and New Worlds. In today’s era of high-speed communications and global connectivity it’s difficult to imagine a time when news travelled no faster than it could be delivered in person. A message can now be sent around the world in less time than it takes to read this sentence. But as late as the 1860s the only way to transmit information across oceans was by ship, which meant weeks of lag time between sender and receiver. The completion of the first transatlantic telegraph line in 1866 redefined global communications, It was literally an overnight sensation. But like many so called overnight sensations, the transatlantic cable was twelve years in the making and five attempts, world’s largest steamship, the SS Great Eastern, and millions of dollars of capital to overcome the long list of catastrophes and human errors that plagued the project from the start. The Transatlantic Cable represented the Apollo project of its day and this is the story of how the Victorian Internet became truly global. discovery-enterprise/2011/04/transatlantic-cable.html
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:54:17 +0000
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