Mondo Knows Facts
The first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid across the ocean floor in 1858
Queen Victoria and President James Buchanan exchanged telegrams across the Atlantic Ocean
In August 1858, steamships laid a heavy insulated copper cable across the Atlantic seabed connecting Ireland and Newfoundland. Queen Victoria sent a ninety-eight word greeting telegram to US President James Buchanan, though message transmission took over sixteen hours due to weak electrical signals. Reliable multi-wire transatlantic cables were achieved by 1866.
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Tags: telecoms, cables, atlantic
The first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid across the ocean floor in 1858: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Queen Victoria and President James Buchanan exchanged telegrams across the Atlantic Ocean. The figure is taken from IEEE History Center, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
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- Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.
