hello Ronnie welcome back to another episode of mega-projects this one is about the transatlantic undersea cable normally Omega projects I like to say that we cover you know skyscrapers the International Space Station things that people are definitely aware of and could see but then I realize we don't we really cover the hidden things anyway so this is kind of par for the course but with that said let's just jump into it shall we [Music] before the internet before smartphones before even those old-fashioned phones the answer I rotate the numbers to dial a friend of Mines parents had robos growing up I grew up in the 90s it was even weird back then even before all of those things there was a form of communication that changed everything no longer were humans constrained by another human physically taking a message to a different location the telegraph revolutionized how we communicate what would take days or even weeks could now be sent in a matter of hours or even minutes but our story today is focused on one particularly groundbreaking project because that's what we do here at mega projects we do projects on the 16th of August 1858 the world's first transatlantic Telegraph message made its way through a cable stretching over two thousand miles from the Irish coast to Newfoundland at canada's edge today we barely think about such a possibility but a hundred and sixty two years ago it was nothing short of revolutionary while Samuel Morse gets most of the credit for the invention of the Telegraph he was not alone several other inventors made significant steps during the 1830s and 1840s but it was Morse who patented the electric telegraph in 1837 so he kinda gets all of the credit by transmitting electrical signals through wires connected to two separate stations the world of communication was forever altered and today of course we know this as Morse code in fact that's probably why you've heard of Morse even if you didn't know he invented the Telegraph you've probably heard of Morse code anyway more centers first Telegraph message on the 24th of May 1844 between Washington DC and Baltimore it read what hath God wrought a phrase taken from the Bible if there was any doubt about that the Wasson's the telegraph quickly spread throughout the United States and in less than a decade over 20,000 miles of cable had been connected across the country well surprisingly considering how we crave speed and efficiency today it was pretty hugely popular by 1861 the first transcontinental wire stretched across the United States installed by Western Union while over in Europe particularly in Britain and France a web of telegraph connections was slowly emerging but there remained the problem of how these two continents could communicate quickly [Music] today we can send messages across the Atlantic in the blink of an eye in fact way faster than wink of an eye it is that the speed of light pretty much it has become so simple is easy to forget how extraordinarily difficult this was before 1858 first of all you had to write a letter and who even does that these days then it had to be transported across the ocean a journey of at least ten days then it had to be distributed to its recipient the standard postal delivery time from London to New York in the 1850s was 12 days throwing a bad storm and that would surge upwards a message to more remote areas of the United States might take months you probably wanted to get your wedding RSVPs out a couple of years in advance then just to be sure in 1861 successful underwater Telegraph cables had been laid between the UK and France and the UK and Ireland but the Atlantic would be an entirely different proposition because it's absolutely massive Morse had stated his case for transatlantic submarine cable as early as 1841 but the earliest attempts in the early 1850s were simply to connect Nova Scotia and Newfoundland American businessman Cyrus West Fields thought this idea was onto something and despite knowing absolutely nothing about Telegraph cables or pert that matter of the Atlantic Ocean he took up the cause with remarkable vigor after consulting with oceanographers he believed a feasible route across the Atlantic existed they were so certain that the route had provisionally been named Telegraph plateau this route would not connect the UK to the USA but rather Ireland to Canada Newfoundland to be exact not only was this the shortest route across the Atlantic make sense but it would also avoid the more rugged underwater terrain that lay south of Telegraph plateau in 1856 the link between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland was completed at a cost of a million dollars which is just over 30 million dollars today meanwhile Cyrus Westfield was busying himself over in the UK which was the only place producing a large amount of submarine cable at the time he ordered 2,500 miles of the cable from gutter perch company and in October of 1856 he forms the Atlantic Telegraph company both the British and American governments made financial contributions to the project while the sale of company stocks boosted the budget further the cable being produced for the project needed to be armored separately meaning to place a protective casing around as you might expect for 2,500 miles worth of cable this was an absolutely mountainous project in itself and was completed by two separate companies glass Elias Inc oh and RS Newell and company things got off to a slightly embarrassing start when he was found towards the end of manufacturing that the two companies had been twisting their strands in opposite directions now that might not sound like a significant problem but it meant that the wire couldn't be directly spliced together because it would just unravel fortunately this was relatively easily fixed with an improvised wooden bracket but the fiasco had certainly damaged the young company's reputation even before the cable had been laid although wasn't there that satellite or that there was a Mars rover or something that was sent there and it just didn't work because they used the wrong units like someone used Imperial and someone used the metric so don't worry too much cable guys you did okay the cable that would reside under the Atlantic Ocean consisted of seven copper wires each weighing 107 pounds per nautical mile or 26 kilometers per kilogram it was covered with three coats of gutta-percha which was non conductive sap from the pallet wium grouping of trees and it was wound with tarp hemp over which a sheath of 18 strands each of seven iron wires and wrapped in a helix pattern corkscrew-shaped completed the cable it weighed nearly 1.1 tons per nautical mile that's 550 kilograms per kilometer but considering its weight it was relatively flexible capable of withstanding a pull of several tons of pressure if you expect that this was done quickly I am going to stop you right there this was a rocky ride all the way through discussions had taken place as the best way to lay the cable should a ship sail west with the cable on board or should two ships make their way to the middle and then splice their cables together and then travel back in opposite directions for the first attempts at least the first option was taken one boat the cable began near ballycarbery castle in southern ireland with two vessels HMS Agamemnon and USS Niagara both borrowed from their respective governments waiting offshore the two ships were needed because the 2,500 nautical miles of cable was just too big for one ship to carry alone the cable broke on the first day but was grappled and quickly repaired as the ships headed west things started to look promising but once again the cable snaps and this time it disappeared below the way it was probably ending up around 2 miles 1.6 kilometers underwater a total of 300 miles of cable had been lost in an instant and the operation was abandoned for the time being at a cost of two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds which is about 14 million pounds today should the guard the boat where the cable just falls off he's like [ __ ] the following year they tried again this time with an improved braking mechanism for the cable much of the early problems had come from the difficulties in regulating tension on the cable but trials have shown this new method to be successful and this time both ships would move in opposite directions from a central point on June the 10th 1858 the two ships once again Don's their hefty cargo and sailed clear of the Irish coast 10 days in a furious storm tore through the area battering the two vessels and injuring many on board both boats were so top-heavy that they faced the very real danger of capsizing but neither did and on the 25th of June they arrived at the midway point the two cables were spliced together and both boats began moving gingerly away from each other the Agamemnon moved east towards islands and the Niagara west towards Newfoundland but again it didn't go well the vast cable broke three separate times after three nautical miles 5.5 kilometres 54 nautical miles 100 kilometres and lastly when the two boats were nautical miles 370 kilometers apart once again work was paused and the boats returned to Ireland even just thinking about this endeavor is maddeningly frustrating so we can only imagine what it must have been like for those involved but nothing worth doing was ever easy and this was certainly something worth doing discord was brewing within the Atlantic telegraph company some directors did it enough and we're looking to cut their losses by selling off the cable and abandoning the project altogether only the blind determination of Cyrus Westfield's kept the project afloat so what do they say about third time being the charm the ships departed once again on the 17th of July and by the 28th of July the cables had been spliced together in the middle of the ocean the two ships again set course for their respective continents and would you know it everything went well well sort of most importantly the cable did not break but both boats did veer wildly off course because their compasses were affected by the electrically charged cable on boards this was addressed by each having a small pilot boat leading the way the Niagara arrived in Trinity Bay in Newfoundland on the 4th of August and the following day the cable was brought ashore and detached the cable house that same day the Agamemnon arrived in Valencia Island where the cable was brought ashore at knightstown short test messengers went back and forth over the next few days to ascertain the reliability before announcing it to the world on the 16th of August the world's first official Telegraph message whizzed across the Atlantic Ocean to North America and it read directors of Atlantic Telegraph Company Great Britain to Directors in America Europe and America are united by Telegraph glory to God in the highest on earth peace goodwill towards men but some important people also wanted to have their say a telegram message from Queen Victoria was sent to President James Buchanan in which she hoped that the cable would prove to be an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on their common interest and reciprocal esteem the president responded in a more flowery manner by saying it is a triumph most glorious because it is far more useful to mankind than was ever won by conquerors on the field of battle may the Atlantic Telegraph under the blessing of heaven proved to be a bond of Perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations and an instrument destined by divine providence to diffuse religion civilization liberty and law throughout the world very flowery mr. Buchanan that sounds wonderful but do you ever thought for the poor guy who has to decipher it unfortunately the signal was so bad they took on average of 2 minutes and 5 seconds to just send a single character Victoria's entire message was only 98 words long and took a staggering 17 hours to transmit at a plotting rate of 0.1 words per minute the public response was overwhelming New York held a 100 gun salute in its honor go Ellen 21 guns right while one of the major players on the project Charles Tilton Brite was knighted in Britain for his service surely this is where it all rides off into the glorious sunset of success but no just three weeks later the cable broke and it all came down to the law of squares have you never heard of us well neither had we but it states that the current injected into the cable reaches a maximum at a time proportional to the square of the distance down the line in more simplistic terms the distance was too far for the cable to be used and the voltage sent down it in the first few weeks was too high the installations around in the wires was simply not enough for the 2,000 volts and to make matters worse several sections of the line without to be corrupted the response to such a high profile failure after such joyous celebrations was fierce with some even claiming that the whole thing had been a hoax Wow couple of things their conspiracy theories have always been around and - can you imagine having this technology being able to communicate across the Atlantic in well you know 17 hours for a message but compared to the weeks or you know week plus for a message before it'd be like going back to dial up or teletext [Music] but Cyrus Westfield was eager to get started on a second attempt yet after the failure of the first trust and motivation was pretty low it wasn't until 1864 that he raised the capital needed for a second cable by this point long cables had been laid below the Mediterranean and the Red Sea and with this added knowledge some important design alterations were added this time the copper was coated with Chatterton's compounds and adhesive waterproofing compounds that had been created in 1859 followed by four layers of gutter perch at the core was then covered with hemp which had first been saturated in a preservative solution the hemp contained 18 single strands of high tensile steel wire each of these wires was also covered with fine strands of Manila yarn itself heavy in preservative now when you first think about you know laying a cable underwater you think of cables you know this is a lot more complicated and contains a lot of weird stuff in total the second cable weighed twice as much as the first at around four thousand pounds per nautical mile or 180 kilograms kilometer this time the process would use only one ship that Great Eastern which had been purposefully fitted to be able to accommodate the 2300 miles of cable on board on the 15th of July 1867 the Great Eastern steamed clear off the Irish coast and all was going well 1062 miles 1709 kilometers had been paid out when the cable snapped and it disappeared to take the water initial efforts to recover it failed and the Great Eastern made its way home now I know I keep going on about tenacity and perseverance in this video but you've got to give it to them here the following year on the 18th of July 1866 the refitted vessel once again left Ireland and despite running into some pretty nasty weather landed the cable in Newfoundland on the 27th of July once again there was a fully functioning transatlantic cable running under the Atlantic so surely that is it but amazingly and well maybe not surprisingly it wasn't that August the Great Eastern along with several other ships set sail with the hope of finding the cable that have been lost the year before the odds of them finding it were slim actually we're probably being a bit optimistic here it was incredibly unlikely they would find it but this is just that kind of story despite only having rough coordinates they succeeded in finding a cable on the ocean floor about 2.5 miles four kilometres down simply by using grappling hooks at the end of long ropes how is that even possible it's incredibly lucky imagine the draw of the crew as it appeared now imagine walking in in the morning to find that the cable had seemingly slipped from the ship and disappeared once again it sounds ludicrous it does indeed once again they found the cable though and this time they took 26 hours to get it safely onto the great eastern secure with its precious cargo to ship steamed for Newfoundland arriving on the 7th of September the world had waited so long for a transatlantic cable and now there were two er them and that is where this extraordinary tale of Victorian era ingenuity and bloody mindedness comes to an end numerous more cables were laid in the coming decades and by the end of the 19th century there was a complex web of Telegraph cables owned by the British French Germans and Americans stretching across the Atlantic but of course there went much further than that by the 1890s submarine cables stretched every continent and in 1902 where cable was laid beneath the Pacific Ocean which completed the circumnavigation of the world by The Telegraph so let's just take a moment with that facts in less than 50 years we have moved from letters carried on ships to most parts of the world communicating by telegraph it was a truly astonishing period the transatlantic Telegraph cable boosted trade between Europe and North America a report in 2018 suggests that the cable alone had been responsible for an 8% rise in total trade the cable laid in 1866 was significantly faster than its earlier cousin and was now able to send eight words per minute that sounds painful to think about now but back then it was monumental and the speed that business could be conducted was never again the same in the early stages at least the cost meant that it was mainly government to big businesses that used the service at $10 or a hundred and sixty one dollars per word today it was certainly pricey of course the use of the Telegraph has made industry now the service was in declined by the 1920s as the telephone began to take hold interestingly Western Union who if you remember was a key player in the telegram business gave up its patent battle with Alexander Graham Bell because they consider their Telegraph service to be better than the telephone but they probably regretted that one by the 1930s and 1940s it had come to the end of the road in terms of wide public use but it was still regularly used to distribute news feeds from agencies until the 1990s went something called the internet came along the story of the transatlantic Telegraph cable has everything you want in an old-fashioned tale of groundbreaking engineering and it's perfect for a mega-projects video it's got audacity adventure and more than a little of the absurd make no mistake about it The Telegraph revolutionized the way we communicate in much the same way the Internet has done today the cable running beneath the cold Atlantic waters for over 2,000 miles meant that two people on two different continents could communicate for the very first time this was a pioneering achievements that quite simply changed the world so this has been mega-projects I really hope you enjoyed this one I found this super interesting I love the ones where it's like you don't expect it to be incredibly cool like a giant skyscraper you're like it's gonna be pretty awesome but a wire beneath the sea who knew I mean I knew it was gonna be cool but this cool who knew thank you for watching smash that like button if you did and you watch it all the way to the end so you know you probably did and like I always say unless you hate watched it in that case feel free to dislike thanks for watching [Music] [Music]
