Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, one hundred and sixty five years ago today,
Speaker 1: Cruiz finished laying the first transatlantic telegraph cable and then
Speaker 1: the first successful communication was sent along that cable a
Speaker 1: few days later. So we are replaying our episode on
Speaker 1: the first transatlantic cable today. This originally came out on
Speaker 1: November ninth, twenty sixteen. Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy D. Wilson,
Speaker 1: and today we are listening to a topic that we
Speaker 1: have gotten a number of requests for. One of them
Speaker 1: that sticks in my mind is a request from our listener, Jeff.
Speaker 1: But basically, the eighteen thirties and the eighteen forties were
Speaker 1: a really exciting time for communication throughout the world. Sign
Speaker 1: Tists and inventors were experimenting with telegraphy in some form
Speaker 1: or another, and the world sort of stood on this
Speaker 1: threshold of information flow. And once the ability to reach
Speaker 1: one another through mechanical means started to become a reality.
Speaker 1: Of course, as we know living in the digital age now,
Speaker 1: that information flow quickly became a full on jet. But
Speaker 1: it really was like a pretty speedy transition even then.
Speaker 1: But to get to that initial point where things really
Speaker 1: started to be global, it took almost two decades to
Speaker 1: get a message sent across the Atlantic Ocean by telegraph.
Speaker 1: That's from the time the idea was adopted as the
Speaker 1: next logical step for global communication to when they actually
Speaker 1: got a line completed and working. And this is sort
Speaker 1: of a story of inspiration and daring, but above all,
Speaker 1: the real story here is tenacity. As you will see
Speaker 1: our story of the Transatlantic Cable. Unsurprisingly, we'll start with
Speaker 1: Samuel Morse, who was credited with the invention of the
Speaker 1: telegraph and his original career trajectory. If you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with it, might surprise you a little bit. I suddenly
Speaker 1: was so. Samuel F. B. Morsh was born on April
Speaker 1: twenty seventh of seventeen ninety one to parents Jedediah and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Finley Morse, and as a student both at Phillips
Speaker 1: Academy and then at Yale College, his performance was pretty
Speaker 1: middling in all subjects except for art, which he loved.
Speaker 1: He was not really aspiring to be an engineer or
Speaker 1: an inventor at this point. He wanted to become a
Speaker 1: painter when he got out of college. That was not
Speaker 1: a particularly lucrative career plan. After an apprenticeship to a
Speaker 1: Boston publisher, it was a parent that art really was
Speaker 1: the only thing that he was interested in, so his
Speaker 1: father sent him to England to study at the Royal Academy,
Speaker 1: where he developed his style in the Romantic tradition. So,
Speaker 1: after studying in England, he returned to Boston in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifteen and he set up a studio there where he
Speaker 1: continued to paint these large, epic pieces that were really
Speaker 1: well regarded, but they weren't very lucrative. Everybody, but he
Speaker 1: loved to look at them and talked about how good
Speaker 1: they were, but nobody was buying them. So a few
Speaker 1: years into his art career, he married a woman named
Speaker 1: Lucretia Walker. This was in eighteen eighteen, and at this
Speaker 1: point he realized he had to make ends meet and
Speaker 1: provide for his bride and they were having a family,
Speaker 1: so he began taking commissions to paint portraits, often traveling
Speaker 1: to do so. Seven years into the marriage, Lucretia died
Speaker 1: after giving birth to the couple's third child, and Samuel
Speaker 1: was away on a painting job. When this happened, he
Speaker 1: was so devastated that he wasn't able to make it
Speaker 1: home in time for her burial, and this was just
Speaker 1: the beginning of a series of heartaches for him. His
Speaker 1: father died the following year, and then his mother passed
Speaker 1: away a few years after that. So eventually Morse decided
Speaker 1: to travel to Europe in eighteen twenty nine for a
Speaker 1: three year trip that was intended to help him move
Speaker 1: through his grief. This also proved to be a pivotal
Speaker 1: move because on the return voyage. Once he had done
Speaker 1: this traveling, he met physician and some time inventor and
Speaker 1: a great potential podcast subject, Charles Thomas Jackson. So, according
Speaker 1: to the story, Jackson and Morse discussed the possibilities of
Speaker 1: the transmission of messages via electrical current, and Morse came
Speaker 1: away from this discussion very inspired. After making some quick
Speaker 1: initial sketches for a machine and then spending several years
Speaker 1: studying the electric relay work of scientist Joseph Henry, Morse
Speaker 1: started building a telegraph prototype. As has been the case
Speaker 1: with many inventions we've talked about in the podcast, Morse's
Speaker 1: telegraph did not just appear in a vacuum. Not only
Speaker 1: was he building on the work of others, but there
Speaker 1: are also numerous other inventors who were working on similar
Speaker 1: concepts of the time, with all of them basically driven
Speaker 1: by a goal of improved communication for humankind. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: important to remember that if you wanted to communicate something
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic Ocean, which was a frequent destination, like
Speaker 1: people in the state, we're often sending things back to
Speaker 1: Europe and vice versa, the fastest you could expect a
Speaker 1: letter to reach someone was like a week, and that
Speaker 1: was a really fast instance thinking about all the various
Speaker 1: things we've talked about over the past years of the show,
Speaker 1: where problems would have been completely prevented if it didn't
Speaker 1: take weeks for a letter to get anywhere. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this was sort of on a lot of people's
Speaker 1: minds that they were like, man, if only I could
Speaker 1: get communication to go faster. So that's why many people
Speaker 1: were working on this, And so from eighteen thirty eight
Speaker 1: to eighteen forty two, Morse and a partner named Alfred
Speaker 1: Vale worked on getting funding to finish the development of
Speaker 1: the telegraph machine and to develop the communication system that
Speaker 1: would eventually be known as Morse Code, and a Congressman
Speaker 1: from Maine named Francis ormand Jonathan Smith eventually backed the pair,
Speaker 1: and he helped them get a congressional grant of thirty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to run a telegraph line from the US
Speaker 1: Capitol in Washington, d C. To Baltimore, Maryland that was
Speaker 1: a span of thirty eight miles about sixty one kilometers.
Speaker 1: Their proof of concept demonstration for Congress had been a
Speaker 1: line strung between committee rooms in the Capitol that relaid
Speaker 1: several messages back and forth. Even as the line from
Speaker 1: Washington's of Baltimore was being laid, they were already using it.
Speaker 1: They would sort of put out a stretch and then
Speaker 1: attach a machine to it and use it. And on
Speaker 1: May first of eighteen forty four, it had reached within
Speaker 1: fifteen miles of Baltimore, and the line we was used
Speaker 1: to transmit Whig Convention nominees to Morse in Washington, DC
Speaker 1: to announce the word via a telegraph line got to
Speaker 1: DC more than an hour faster than the train from
Speaker 1: Baltimore that was carrying the news. Yeah, that was kind
Speaker 1: of a big moment where people were like, this is
Speaker 1: viable this is really going to happen. And on May
Speaker 1: twenty fourth of eighteen forty four, the first telegraph on
Speaker 1: the newly completed d C Baltimore line. So there had
Speaker 1: been some going on before, but the completed line, the
Speaker 1: first note was sent by Morse and it read what
Speaker 1: hath God Wrought? Once this message had actually been sent,
Speaker 1: it led to a period of explosive growth in communications.
Speaker 1: There were also multiple challenges to his patent on it,
Speaker 1: which he was granted in eighteen forty seven, but ultimately
Speaker 1: he was recognized as the inventor of the telegraph. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just as with any big invention we've talked about, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of people who wanted to say no, no,
Speaker 1: I was part of that development. I was an important,
Speaker 1: important part of it, including the general fer Art on
Speaker 1: this machine. Yeah, including the gentleman that he had talked
Speaker 1: with while he was returning from Europe, Charles Thomas Jackson. Again,
Speaker 1: that would be a whole great episode in and of itself,
Speaker 1: but over the following decade after they finished that that
Speaker 1: line between the Capitol and Baltimore more than twenty thousand miles,
Speaker 1: that's thirty two thousand kilometers roughly of telegraph line was
Speaker 1: laid in the US, and in Europe a similar set
Speaker 1: of criss crossing lines were being laid throughout the continent,
Speaker 1: connecting people like never before. Seriously, I I want to
Speaker 1: make sure people grasp what a huge moment this was.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like how we went from regular kind
Speaker 1: of clunky cell phones to smartphones and sort of everything changed.
Speaker 1: In terms of trying to give a contemporary example, it
Speaker 1: was that big of a jump. As quickly as telegraph
Speaker 1: lines were spreading, ideas for new ways to extend and
Speaker 1: push the technology were also spreading, and it wasn't long
Speaker 1: before the idea of sending telegraphs across large bodies of
Speaker 1: water took root in the minds of people who were
Speaker 1: you thinking about advancements. While a so called Siberian telegraph
Speaker 1: line was also considered considered because it would require fewer
Speaker 1: dips into the water, a transatlantic cable was deemed to
Speaker 1: be more viable because it would need to travel a
Speaker 1: shorter distance. Yeah, it also wouldn't have to deal quite
Speaker 1: so much with cold. But of course a line across
Speaker 1: or more accurately under the water posed a number of challenges.
Speaker 1: It had to be strong and resilient and it had
Speaker 1: to be in But of course there were also industrious
Speaker 1: types who were completely ready and willing to rise to
Speaker 1: such challenges. But before we start talking about them and
Speaker 1: the herculean efforts that were made to install this cable
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic, let's pause for a moment and have
Speaker 1: a word from one of our sponsors in the United States.
Speaker 1: Cyrus Westfield, was the driving force behind the idea to
Speaker 1: run a cable under the Atlantic, and he started championing
Speaker 1: this idea in eighteen fifty four. Field was a financier
Speaker 1: from Stockbridge, Massachusetts who had made his money in the
Speaker 1: paper business, which truck cracks me up a little bit
Speaker 1: because you know that might affect his own financial interests
Speaker 1: before putting his efforts into submarines telegraph. And this would
Speaker 1: not be the first line that was dropped underwater. A
Speaker 1: link between Great Britain and France was completed at the
Speaker 1: begin in the eighteen fifties that went through the English Channel,
Speaker 1: but this was obviously a far more ambitious thing than
Speaker 1: any linking line that had existed up to that point,
Speaker 1: and there were other underwater lines as well, but again
Speaker 1: much shorter under the entire ocean. Field gathered information from
Speaker 1: a variety of sources in this whole plan. He spoke
Speaker 1: extensively with Frederick Newton Gisborne, who had run a line
Speaker 1: from Nova Scotia to the tip of Newfoundland before his
Speaker 1: company collapsed. He talked to an oceanographer named Matthew Maury
Speaker 1: to try to gain insight into issues like currents and
Speaker 1: the shifting of the steafloor, and he referred to Samuel
Speaker 1: Morse to make sure that the technical requirements for this
Speaker 1: line would be adequately addressed. Morris had also run some
Speaker 1: underwater lines in the New York Harbor, so he had
Speaker 1: some insights into the actual running of submarine cables. Cyrus
Speaker 1: Field formed the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company
Speaker 1: to manage this venture, but he didn't stay independent. Didn't
Speaker 1: stay that company that eventually rolled up under a parent
Speaker 1: company that he helped form called the Atlantic Telegraph Company,
Speaker 1: and Feeled at that point entered into a partnership with
Speaker 1: three British men as they established that firm. That was
Speaker 1: Charles Bright and then John and Jacob Brett, two brothers,
Speaker 1: and that happened in eighteen fifty six. The Brett brothers
Speaker 1: had already run that line that connected Britain and France
Speaker 1: across the English Channel under the umbrella of the General
Speaker 1: Oceanic and Submarine Telegraph Company, so they had some pretty
Speaker 1: good experience to start with. The partnership began with three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand British pounds in capital. Field's own
Speaker 1: money made up about a quarter of that startup capital,
Speaker 1: and then the company was able to get a charter
Speaker 1: to run an insulated line of cable across the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: The British government also paid an annual subsidy to the
Speaker 1: project of fourteen hundred pounds per year. So first the
Speaker 1: cable that they needed had to be manufactured, and that
Speaker 1: was a process which basically took the entire first half
Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty seven. It was made by two different companies,
Speaker 1: Glass Elliot and Company of Greenwich and RS. Newele and
Speaker 1: Company of Liverpool. And this cable was made using seven
Speaker 1: twenty two gauge copper wires which were twisted together and
Speaker 1: then they were coded with latex, and that latex shrouded
Speaker 1: line was then wrapped in tarred hemp, and then that
Speaker 1: was coated with an iron wire casing that was made
Speaker 1: from eighteen strands of wire, each made with seven charcoal
Speaker 1: annealed iron wires that were twenty two gauge, So it
Speaker 1: was a lot of wrapped in coiled wire making up
Speaker 1: one big cable. The cable, once it was all assembled,
Speaker 1: was approximately three quarters of an inch in diameter, and
Speaker 1: a mile of cable required one hundred and thirty three
Speaker 1: miles of wire to make it. It weighed about a
Speaker 1: ton per mile of length. Yeah, that is not not
Speaker 1: light business. And in the meantime, the Atlantic Telegraph Company,
Speaker 1: while that cable was being made, had been drumming up
Speaker 1: aid from both the US and British navies for this project.
Speaker 1: So the US Navy had already compiled a survey of
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean between Newfoundland and Ireland that identified the
Speaker 1: most suitable route for the cable to sit. And once
Speaker 1: the cable was completed in the two locations by those
Speaker 1: two companies, it was placed aboard two ships. The Niagara
Speaker 1: from the US collected the cable that had been manufactured
Speaker 1: in Liverpool, and the HMS Agamemnon of Great Britain took
Speaker 1: on the cable that had been manufactured in Greenwich. The
Speaker 1: initial run set out from the most westerly point of
Speaker 1: Ireland the first week of August eighteen fifty seven, after
Speaker 1: the European end of the cable was brought ashore. First
Speaker 1: the Niagara would lay down its cargo of cable, which
Speaker 1: would take it to the mid Atlantic, and then the
Speaker 1: cable aboard the Agamemnod would be spliced to that and
Speaker 1: would be dropped for the rest of the distance to
Speaker 1: North America. And things went pretty well for almost a week,
Speaker 1: but after six days there was an error handling the
Speaker 1: breaking mechanism that controlled the cable's speed of descent into
Speaker 1: the water, so the line snapped less than four hundred
Speaker 1: miles or about six hundred and forty four kilometers into
Speaker 1: the trip, and they tried with like grappling mechanisms to
Speaker 1: try to grab it again, but they just could not,
Speaker 1: so the Niagara and the Agamemnon returned to port. Additional
Speaker 1: cable had to be made up for the lengths of
Speaker 1: line that were lost to the bottom of the sea.
Speaker 1: The second attempt started with the same two vessels, but
Speaker 1: this time, instead of both setting out in the same direction,
Speaker 1: they met in the mid Atlantic and then spliced the
Speaker 1: ends of the cables from each ship together and then
Speaker 1: the ships set out in separate directions like some kind
Speaker 1: of math problem. Unsurprisingly to me, the line broke almost
Speaker 1: as soon as the two ships started moving. That just
Speaker 1: seems like the worst, worst possible plan. Well, that's eventually
Speaker 1: how it happens, so don't get too judging. I'm to say.
Speaker 1: It seems like this is rife. It seems like a
Speaker 1: big gambol. Yeah, but they had done some testing in
Speaker 1: smaller bodies of water while they were having that extra
Speaker 1: cable made, and it seemed like this was probably good work.
Speaker 1: So a third attempt was started right away, again, beginning
Speaker 1: with a joint of the two lines before each of
Speaker 1: the ships set out, and with only forty miles about
Speaker 1: sixty four kilometers of cable in place, there was yet
Speaker 1: another snap. They tried a third time, and this yielded
Speaker 1: better results. They did manage to put down one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty six miles about two hundred and thirty five
Speaker 1: kilometers worth of line before there was another break, And
Speaker 1: each time they would grapple and try to get those ends.
Speaker 1: But at some point you had to cut your losses
Speaker 1: and say let's go back to port and reformulate our plan.
Speaker 1: At this point. I feel like the Transatlantic cable had
Speaker 1: burned down, fell over, and then sank it to the swap.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much how it feels. I would have given
Speaker 1: up at this point, but remember they're so deep in.
Speaker 1: Four efforts gone bad was a setback. I'm sure plenty
Speaker 1: of other people were like me judging their failures, but
Speaker 1: it did not stop the project. Money was short, however,
Speaker 1: and these numerous failed attempts had already cost about three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand pounds, so new shares of the Atlantic Telegraph
Speaker 1: Company had to be offered for sale at twenty pounds
Speaker 1: each to try to build up the company coffers. And
Speaker 1: they did. They made some money and were ready to go.
Speaker 1: So the Agamemnon and the Niagara set sale for the
Speaker 1: rendezvous point in the mid Atlantic once again on June
Speaker 1: tenth of eighteen fifty eight, after they had been restocked
Speaker 1: with cable and machinery, but this time a storm quickly
Speaker 1: derailed their plans. The Niagara managed the weather without too
Speaker 1: much trouble, but the Agamemnon really really suffered. According to accounts,
Speaker 1: it almost capsized. It lost some of the coal that
Speaker 1: it was using for fuel as it was being tossed
Speaker 1: around at sea, and while the two vessels did manage
Speaker 1: to meet and start their cable laying mission, things quickly failed.
Speaker 1: Not only did the cable snap, but the Agamemnon had
Speaker 1: to use sail power to try to return to the
Speaker 1: rendezvous point. But the Niagara at that point had returned
Speaker 1: to Ireland as had been in the plan in the
Speaker 1: event that the two ships lost communication, so eventually the
Speaker 1: Agamemnon also made it back to port on July twe
Speaker 1: wealth and the next two weeks were spent repairing and
Speaker 1: were stocking and resetting the ships. Four vessels met in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean on July twenty ninth, eighteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: to try yet again. The ships were the Agamemnon, the Valorous,
Speaker 1: the Niagara, and the Gorgon, with the Agamemnon and the
Speaker 1: Valarus aimed at Ireland and the Niagara and the Gorgon
Speaker 1: headed toward Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. The four vessels started laying cable,
Speaker 1: and this time they managed to connect the line short
Speaker 1: shore all the way across the Atlantic, so apparently they
Speaker 1: just needed two more ships additionally, well, they I think
Speaker 1: those may have even been on a prior attempt but
Speaker 1: I wasn't clear on that. In my research, they're kind
Speaker 1: of left out of a lot of the talk because
Speaker 1: they were kind of just support vessels at that point.
Speaker 1: They were still doing basically the same plan with two
Speaker 1: ships running line, and then they had some support in case,
Speaker 1: I presume, but they did manage to get it stretched across,
Speaker 1: and that cable was completed on August fifth, when the
Speaker 1: Agamemnon reached Ireland. That was one day after the Niagara
Speaker 1: had brought the North American end of the cable to
Speaker 1: Trinity Bay. And all told, at this point the line
Speaker 1: ran more than two thousand miles that's about thirty two
Speaker 1: hundred kilometers across the ocean floor, and once it was
Speaker 1: connected to the local telegraph stations, it worked. On August sixteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight, the first telegraph cable to cross the
Speaker 1: Atlantic was sent and it read directors of Atlantic Telegraph Company,
Speaker 1: Great Britain to directors in America. Europe and America are
Speaker 1: united by telegraph, Glory to God in the highest on Earth,
Speaker 1: Peace and goodwill towards men. And then that same message
Speaker 1: was relayed back across the Atlantic to confirm that the
Speaker 1: line was working in both directions success for right now,
Speaker 1: We're going to revel in this success for just a moment,
Speaker 1: and what we do, we're going to have a quick
Speaker 1: word from one of our sponsors. So after that initial success,
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria and President James Buchanan were then able to
Speaker 1: trade messages on this newly laid line, and the British
Speaker 1: monarch cabled on August seventeenth the following message. The Queen
Speaker 1: desires to congratulate the President upon the successful completion of
Speaker 1: this great international work in which the Queen has taken
Speaker 1: the greatest interest. The Queen is convinced that the President
Speaker 1: will join her in fervently hoping that the electric cable
Speaker 1: which now connects Great Britain with the United States, will
Speaker 1: provide an additional link between the two nations, whose friendship
Speaker 1: is founded upon their common interest and reciprocal esteem. The
Speaker 1: Queen has much pleasure in thus directly communicating with the
Speaker 1: President and in renewing to him her best wishes for
Speaker 1: the prosperity of the United States. Buchanan replied, the President
Speaker 1: cordially reciprocates the congratulations of her Majesty the Queen on
Speaker 1: the success of this great international enterprise. Accomplished by the science, skill,
Speaker 1: and indomitable energy of the two countries. It is a
Speaker 1: triumph more glorious because far more useful to mankind than
Speaker 1: ever one by conqueror on the field of battle. May
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to
Speaker 1: be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the
Speaker 1: kindred nations, and an instrument designed by Divine Providence to
Speaker 1: diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world. In
Speaker 1: this view, we will not all the nations of Christendom
Speaker 1: spontaneously unite in the declaration that it shall be forever neutral,
Speaker 1: and that its communications shall be held sacred in passing
Speaker 1: to the place of their destination, even in the midst
Speaker 1: of hostilities. So you may have noticed these are wordy telegraphs.
Speaker 1: They're real wordies. They're talkie talkie, and apparently they were
Speaker 1: quite vexing to the telegraph operators. And because of the
Speaker 1: lengthy nature of these messages, they each took more than
Speaker 1: seventeen hours to transmit. Don't talk so much, you God.
Speaker 1: It's like I get it. You want to convey a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. Transmission received, Stop works stop. This is awesome.
Speaker 1: This excitement was really fleeting because the line had problems
Speaker 1: almost immediately. There are two primary reasons that were discussed
Speaker 1: for the failure. One was that the cable just was
Speaker 1: not strong enough, and the initial messages had been sent
Speaker 1: with too high a voltage that taxi line, so in
Speaker 1: addition to being so long, they were also damaging. As
Speaker 1: for the voltage, this was largely due to the fact
Speaker 1: that operators on either side of the Atlantic were fiddling
Speaker 1: with the settings, trying to figure out how to optimize
Speaker 1: the signal, but neither knew what the person on the
Speaker 1: other end was doing. As for the weakness of the cable,
Speaker 1: there were some claims that one of the cable manufacturers
Speaker 1: had left a section of the cable outside in the
Speaker 1: hot sun before it was delivered to the ships, and
Speaker 1: that some of the latex had melted and ruined the insulation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it could also have been a combination of those things.
Speaker 1: It could also have just been this. This is difficult.
Speaker 1: In my head, there's a little cartoon where like a
Speaker 1: crab or a lobster just walks up and kind of
Speaker 1: gnaws on it, and I know it's made to not
Speaker 1: let that happen. But the cartoon is very cute. I
Speaker 1: was thinking a shark because I've seen jaws. So the
Speaker 1: first transatlantic telegraph line was unfortunately completely dead within just
Speaker 1: a few weeks. It finally went silent on September eighteenth
Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty eight. But even with that failure, some
Speaker 1: really impressive work had been done in the time that
Speaker 1: the cable was functional. Over the course of those twenty
Speaker 1: three days, two hundred and seventy one messages had been
Speaker 1: sent from Newfoundland and one hundred and twenty nine messages
Speaker 1: had been sent from Ireland. Undaunted with this at this
Speaker 1: point just unending list of setbacks, Cyrus Westfield decided to
Speaker 1: try again. I have to commend him. He had to
Speaker 1: start the entire process from scratch, starting all the way
Speaker 1: back at the stage of raising the money to fund
Speaker 1: the venture for a sixth try. It took more than
Speaker 1: seven years to have another attempt ready, but in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five they were ready to go, and this time
Speaker 1: it was a single ship, the Great Eastern, out of Britain,
Speaker 1: that was chartered to lay the line so low. The
Speaker 1: Great Eastern was larger than all of the previous vessels
Speaker 1: that had been used to lay telegraph line, and it
Speaker 1: started in Ireland and headed west toward North America. So
Speaker 1: they're still planning on this same exact positioning. And at
Speaker 1: about the twelve hundred mile that's nineteen thirty one kilometers
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred and thirty one kilometer mark, it happened again
Speaker 1: the thing that keeps happening in all of these field attempts.
Speaker 1: The cable snapped. So at this point every effort was
Speaker 1: made to recover the dropped end of the line, because
Speaker 1: at that point they're already more than halfway there. But
Speaker 1: eventually they had to abandon it for the time being,
Speaker 1: and the Great Eastern returned to Port. More cable had
Speaker 1: to be made before another attempt could be mounted, but
Speaker 1: finally the Great Eastern was loaded with enough cable to
Speaker 1: cross the ocean, as well as additional cable to splice
Speaker 1: the lost end if it could be bound and complete
Speaker 1: a second line. Okay, brace, because this eighteen sixty six
Speaker 1: voyage and laying of the line was shockingly smooth. It
Speaker 1: went just fine. The end of the cable which connected
Speaker 1: Newfoundland to Ireland reached a fishing village named Heart's Content
Speaker 1: on the North American coast on July twenty seventh of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six. If I had been the person at
Speaker 1: the helm of that ship, and also everyone else working
Speaker 1: on the entire thing, I would have been like, am
Speaker 1: I awake right now? I feel like I would have
Speaker 1: held my breath for like a month at a time
Speaker 1: as they crossed the coach. So this time, the first
Speaker 1: message to be sent was quote, a treaty of peace
Speaker 1: has been signed between Austria and Prussia. It's a whole
Speaker 1: lot shorter. Queen Victoria also sent a message to President
Speaker 1: Andrew Johnson saying, the Queen congratulates the President on the
Speaker 1: successful completion of an undertaking which she hopes may serve
Speaker 1: as an additional bond of union between the United States
Speaker 1: and England. So a lot more concise than previously. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is kind of funny because this line was a
Speaker 1: little bit better and stronger, and it probably could have
Speaker 1: handled those longer messages much more effectively, but lesson learned.
Speaker 1: So this was the first permanent line across the ocean,
Speaker 1: and buoyed by the success of that first line, the
Speaker 1: Grade Eastern did head back to find the lost line
Speaker 1: from its earlier mission, and they did manage to locate it,
Speaker 1: even though it had sunk sixteen thousand feet that's about
Speaker 1: four eight hundred and seventy seven meters to the ocean floor,
Speaker 1: and that line was grappled, pulled up, and it was spliced,
Speaker 1: and a backup line was also successfully completed on September eighth.
Speaker 1: Also amazing, the telegraph cable was made available to customers
Speaker 1: right away, but it was really a service for the
Speaker 1: incredibly wealthy. To send a transatlantic telegraph cost a dollar
Speaker 1: per letter, payable in gold. That would be a lot
Speaker 1: today dollar a letter. So in eighteen sixty six, that
Speaker 1: was an incredible amount of money. Yeah, that was like
Speaker 1: mind blowingly costly. But keep in mind that like part
Speaker 1: of what was driving all of these attempts. One, it's
Speaker 1: like this sort of human kind, like let's all communicate
Speaker 1: with each other, global village ideal. But it was also
Speaker 1: a business venture. So part of what gave them that tenacity,
Speaker 1: I think was that they were all in and they
Speaker 1: were like, if we ever want to make money off
Speaker 1: this thing, if we ever want to make our money back,
Speaker 1: we got to finish it. Uh, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be really expensive. But they did go into business and
Speaker 1: did quite well more under sea lines were laid in
Speaker 1: the two decades following that first permanent cable, with an
Speaker 1: estimated one hundred and seven thousand miles that's one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy two thousand kilometers of cable along the bottoms
Speaker 1: of the world's oceans by the late eighteen eighties, so
Speaker 1: just twenty years later, it was everywhere. And the lifespan
Speaker 1: of those first two cables was not especially long. I
Speaker 1: mean it was a lot longer than that first successful attempt.
Speaker 1: One of them failed in eighteen teen seventy two and
Speaker 1: the other in eighteen seventy seven, so one lasted for
Speaker 1: six years and the other for eleven. But by that
Speaker 1: point this failure was no longer an issue because there
Speaker 1: was a lot of redundancy in the system by that
Speaker 1: point thanks to other faster cables that were running along
Speaker 1: the same lines. So global communication network basically established. I mean,
Speaker 1: there were lots of other places that needed to be connected,
Speaker 1: but there was no longer an ocean that needed to
Speaker 1: be crossed. Yeah, I mean, they were connecting across oceans
Speaker 1: pretty much all over the place. Just pretty amazing, and
Speaker 1: those lines weren't used for a long time. It really
Speaker 1: wasn't until you know, into the nineteen hundreds when there
Speaker 1: were viable other options, So very cool. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is
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