Telegraph Cables facts
While investigating facts about Telegraph Cables Cornwall and Telegraph Cables Under The Sea, I found out little known, but curios details like:
The idiom "hear it through the grapevine" is linked to the invention of the telegraph. People compared its cables to the winding and twisting tendrils of a vine.
how were telegraph cables laid in the sea?
On August 16, 1858, when the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid, communication time between Europe and America was reduced from ~10 days to just a few minutes. This specific telegraph cable could transmit about 0.1 words per minute.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 15 of the best facts about Telegraph Cables Around The World and Telegraph Cables History I managed to collect.
what is submarine telegraph cables?
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A transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1858, cutting the time for message transmission down to minutes rather than over a week by boat. Laying the cable involved two of the biggest ships on earth from the U.S. and British Navy meeting in the middle of the atlantic to splice the cable.
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The SS Great Eastern, an engineering marvel, proved too costly to maintain and was converted to a cable laying ship, where it laid the first lasting America - England telegraph cable in 1866.
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The Congo Canyon has the strongest known turbidity currents in the world. These currents, which are essentially underwater avalanches, occur when sediment-rich waters flow rapidly down the canyon walls at speeds of up to 3.5 meters/second, and have been known to destroy telegraph cables.
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The First Ever Transatlantic Telegraph Cable Was Laid by Wooden Ships
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During the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Baltic Fleet accidentally attacked the British, the French, the Swedish, the Germans, and severed a Spanish undersea telegraph cable with one of their anchors. When they finally encountered the Japanese fleet, they were defeated.
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The first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in 1858.
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Hearts Content Newfoundland, where the Transatlantic telegraph cable was constructed back in 1858 connecting NA and EU, still doesn't have cell phone service.
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Before the transatlantic telegraph cable was built, Western Union tried to create a telegraph to Europe by building through Alaska and Siberia
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In 1873 a whale drowned by entangling itself in a submarine cable, disrupting telegraph service across the Persian Gulf
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Mae West's sister and Oscar Mayer, hot dog king of Chicago, waited in bars wired with telegraph cables to see who could toss back the first legal alcoholic drink immediately after Prohibition was repealed in 1933
Why was the transatlantic telegraph cable invented?
You can easily fact check why was the telegraph cable important by examining the linked well-known sources.
The first trans-Atlantic cable telegraph sent in 1858 from Great Britain to America took 17 hours and 40 minutes to transmit
On Christmas Day in 1900, John W. Atkins made the first international phone call to Cuba testing to see if it would be possible for a voice to be heard through the telegraph cables. After a long silence, Cuba simply answered with "I don't understand you." - source
After the first failed attempt to lay the Transatlantic Telegraph cable in 1857 the two vessels were converted into the warships USS Niagara and HMS Agamemnon - source
