They teach you the world got connected in the 1990s. 
Not that a British ship did it in 1866. 🇬🇧 Watch the full story. 🎥 When Abraham Lincoln was shot, London didn’t find out for twelve days. ⏳ An American called Cyrus Field dreamed of a wire under the ocean. 
But nobody in America could make it. Only Britain could. 🇬🇧🏭 Two warships tried to lay it. HMS Agamemnon and USS Niagara. 🚢 
It snapped. It broke. Again and again. 💔 In August 1858 it finally held. America went wild. 🎆 
Three weeks later the cable was dead. For seven years the ocean stayed silent.
Then Britain took it on. 🇬🇧 A new cable from Greenwich. 
The only ship on earth big enough to carry it: Brunel’s giant, the Great Eastern. ⚓ In 1865, twelve hundred miles out, the cable snapped. 
It sank more than two miles down. 🌊 Most people would have given up… 
They made another cable instead. 💪 July 1866. Heart’s Content, Newfoundland. 
Britain and America were joined. News that took twelve days now took minutes. ⚡ But the job wasn’t finished. 
They went back for the cable they’d lost. Two and a half miles down. Nearly thirty attempts. 🪝 Then the spot of light moved. 
The cable was alive. ✨ The wharf is still there in Greenwich. The house on it is a pub now. 
You can drink a pint where the world was wired. 🍺 We come from people who go back for it. 🇬🇧 Help us bring Britain back up from the dark: proudofus.co.uk Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧
Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧