The Disastrous History of the First Transatlantic Cable - World History - Extra History

a cannon Roars from The Citadel of Cal France blasting smoke and sound out over the English Channel the crowd cheers celebrating the momentous event they've all gathered to witness because that shot has not been triggered with a gunpowder fuse but rather by an electric pulse sent from do England along a wire that's been laid along the bottom of the narrow channel separating Britain from France later that day a return signal from Cal sets off a British cannon at the gates of Dover Castle on November 19th 1851 two nations are linked by an undersea cable for

the very first time the times of London declares that this Conquest over the waves must ever remain recorded as amid the greatest of human achievement but some men are already envisioning a grander feat by asking a question if a telegraph cable could Bridge the English Channel could one span the Atlantic Ocean [Music] thanks so much to factor for keeping us history loving beans well fed fast the arrival of the telegraph in the 1830s was nothing short of a revolution for Millennia messages could travel no faster than the speed of a horse or sometimes a bird

but by harnessing the power of electromagnetism messages could now cross entire countries in mere minutes and it caught on quickly between the opening of the first commercial system in 1837 and the laying of the channel cable for years later almost 30,000 M of telegraph wire had been strung across Europe Britain and the United States now news diplomacy and gossip all worked at the speed of electricity but oceans remained a barrier while paddle Steamers and propeller ships had cut travel times significantly it still took around 12 days for a letter to cross from London to New

York and it was that limitation that Frederick Newton Gisborne an Englishman who'd settled in Canada was determined to remove a a self-taught electrical engineer Gisborne imagined a line that stretched from the west coast of Ireland to the east coast of Canada uniting two continents by the miracle of telegraphy so in 1852 he set out on the first stage of his plan to lay an undersea cable from New York to St John's in New Finland I was looked upon as a Visionary by my friends he later recalled and pronounced a Fool by my relatives and 2

years later it kind of seemed like his relatives had been proven right his cable bought in London from the makers of the Channel cable had broken on the Rocky seabed and he only managed to stake 40 Mi of Overland wires in the Frozen Wilderness of Upstate New York Gisborne was now $50,000 in debt and facing prison on charges of fraud so in desperation he looked for an investor to keep his dream alive and he found one in Cyrus Westfield a 35-year-old paper magnate despite having no knowledge of telegraphy or oceanography gisbourne's vision of a Transatlantic

cable would become Fields Obsession he began by forming the cable cabinet a group of investors scientists and Engineers among the first members was actually Samuel Morris the co-creator of Morris code and the inventor of the telegraph system used in the US while gizor was the company's chief engineer it was now pretty clear that Cyrus field was now the driving force behind the project by the end of 1856 gisbourne's line from New York to St John's was complete though at the Steep cost of $1 million and this would prove to actually be the cheap part of

the Enterprise for that same year field ordered 22,000 M of cable from two British companies which was loaded into the holds of the HMS Agamemnon and the USS Niagara loaned to field by the British and American governments but due to its colossal weight the two warships had to share the cable between them tossed about on the Atlantic waves the line broke on the first day that they set out it was grappled up from the seabed and fixed but broke again just days later this time with 30 100 m of cable disappearing Into the Depths undeterred

field tried again in May of 1858 with a new plan the Agamemnon and Niagara would meet in the middle of the Atlantic there they would splice their two halves of the cable together and then set off back toward Ireland and Canada laying cable as they went despite better unwinding mechanisms a violent storm engulfed both ships and the cable broke three times before the attempt was abandoned after this second failure many investors mold cutting their losses yet Fields optimism managed to keep the project going on July 29th 1858 the two ships reved again and spliced cables

for a third attempt this time the conditions were good and the USS Niagara made landfall at New Foundland on August 4th and the following day the HMS Agamemnon reached Ireland the cable had been laid then on August 16th 1858 the first official message was sent along the line Direct directors of Atlantic Telegraph company Great Britain two directors in America Europe and America are united by Telegraph glory to God in the highest on Earth peace goodwi towards men Jubilation marked the front page of every newspaper Bells were rung Flags flown and New York held a parade

heck even Tiffany's department store sold unused pieces of the great cable as jewelry and decorative furniture because keep in mind they were celebrating not just a technical Wonder but possibly a new World Order many believed that this new era of communication would usher in World Peace the laying of the telegraph cable is regarded as the greatest event of the present Century said one writer it is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist while such an instrument has been created for an exchange of thought between all nations of the earth yet even amid the

celebrations there were actually grave problems with the cable first off the quality of the signal was terrible Queen Victoria's message of friendship to President Buchanan sent on the first day took 17 hours to transmit 98 words worse it was clear that the wire was already degrading on September 1st the same day that parties erupted in New York the city actually received its last completed message from Britain and by October 28th the great cable was pronounced dead Henry field Cyrus's brother commented that the Wonder's not that the cable failed after a month but that it ever

worked at all news of the ca's failure caused uproar on both sides of the Atlantic in New York the festivities were replaced by bitter recrimination investors were Furious some even accused field and his company of fabricating the project as part of a stock market Swindle adding fuel to the fire the next year a 3,500 M cable intended to connect the Suz Canal to Karachi also failed meaning no one was in the mood to burn more money in pursuit of fields dream in fact it was 7 years before field could try again after waiting out the

Civil War he formed another group of investors and purchased purchased a new cable in 1865 by then cables crisscrossed the Mediterranean and the Red Sea providing valuable experience for how to pay out the immense weight of thousands of miles of copper and iron also the science of telegraphy was better understood and Superior wires were available transmission times had dropped to eight words a minute which is much better than 2 minutes per letter that Fields first cable had managed so in July of 1865 the SS Great Eastern set out with the new cable and if you've

been following for this entire episode you won't be surprised when I tell you that predictably things went wrong again after laying over a, miles of cable it snapped disappearing over the end of the ship but man field could just sense that he was getting close and managed to gather yet more investors for another attempt in July of 1866 this time the Great Eastern steamed across the Atlantic the great cable unspooling smoothly over its Stern and then on July July 27th the connection between Britain and North America was reestablished and it would remain in place and

in use for the rest of the 19th century and although his Grand project was finally complete Cyrus field had one last Marvel up his sleeve later that year several ships set out toward the site where the 1865 cable had been lost with grappling hooks on the end of heavy ropes they trolled the bottom of the ocean 2 and a half miles beneath the waves and despite astronomical odds they found the Lost cable hauled it aboard and it still worked so they spliced on a fresh length of cable and now there were two Telegraph lines crossing

the Atlantic Ocean though soon there would be more within 5 years cables would reach places as remote As Japan Hong Kong Brazil and Australia for the power of the telegraph was immense governments could keep watch on their far-flung Empires stock markets could be rocked by news of a drought in India or a particularly good harvest in Virginia friends and family separated by thousands of miles could keep in touch and a constant stream of news could hum along the web of wires feeding the Public's insatiable hunger to hear what was happening in every corner of the

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