Mondo Knows Facts

A submarine cable joined Europe and America in 1866

Messages that once took ten days by ship now arrived in minutes An 1858 cable carried a few messages before failing, and a second attempt in 1865 snapped at sea. In 1866 the steamship Great Eastern laid a working cable from Ireland to Newfoundland, and a fresh line was recovered from the 1865 failure. Telegraph traffic between continents became routine, changing news and finance. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Science Museum, London

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Tags: telegraph, cables, communication

A submarine cable joined Europe and America in 1866: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Messages that once took ten days by ship now arrived in minutes. The figure is taken from Science Museum, London, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a history fact?
Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 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.