World History Minute: The Atlantic Cable Completed

By Worldview
The Morse-Vail telegraph register, the first telegraph instrument, was used to receive the message “What Hath God Wrought” on the experimental line between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Md., on May 24, 1844.
The Morse-Vail telegraph register, the first telegraph instrument, was used to receive the message "What Hath God Wrought" on the experimental line between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Md., on May 24, 1844. AP Photo
The Morse-Vail telegraph register, the first telegraph instrument, was used to receive the message “What Hath God Wrought” on the experimental line between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Md., on May 24, 1844.
The Morse-Vail telegraph register, the first telegraph instrument, was used to receive the message "What Hath God Wrought" on the experimental line between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Md., on May 24, 1844. AP Photo

World History Minute: The Atlantic Cable Completed

By Worldview
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For most of history, people could communicate only as fast as someone could physically carry a message, but that all changed on August 5th 1858, when the Atlantic telegraph cable was completed.

Once the United States and Great Britain teamed up to lay a cable for electronic messages, the world became a much smaller place. Historian John Schmidt tells us how that came about.