August 16, 1858 a telegram for the first time united Europe and the United States of America and a new era for telecommunications began. The telegram was 98 words, the British Queen Victoria had written it and was directed to the President of the United States, James Buchanan.
It was a congratulatory message. Finally the United States was linked to Europe. The connection, with a submarine cable, had been obtained a few days earlier, we talked about it in this Almanac, celebrating the vision and tenacity of its creator, Cyrus Field (renamed the Elon Musk of transatlantic cables).
To give the idea of the turning point we will say that up to that moment a message, by ship, it took about ten days to arrive. The telegram from the queen (here a copy of the original) it took a little over 16 hours to arrive and be decrypted. The American president was in his summer White House in Bedford when he received the queen’s telegram congratulating “on the success of this great international enterprise, in which the queen has shown a profound interest.” When the president’s staff ascertained that this was no joke, the president in turn sent a reply telegram, 143 words, which took just ten hours to get to London. Ten days to ten hours.
After that first telegram there were a few days of genuine excitement: that technology seemed like the eighth wonder of the world, but due to a technical error, the cable broke. Cyrus Field went from hero of two worlds to laughing stock in an instant, but he did not give up and after another eight years of trying, a reliable link between Europe and the United States was established in 1866.
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