Grade 8 · History
The First Transatlantic Cable
In the 1850s, news traveled between Europe and North America no faster than a ship could sail, and even a steamship needed about ten days to cross the Atlantic. Telegraph wires already carried messages across land in minutes. So an American businessman named Cyrus Field resolved to lay a telegraph cable along the floor of the ocean itself, roughly two thousand miles from Ireland to Newfoundland. Many experts declared the plan impossible.
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