Events
of the day in History
First Around-The-World Telegram
Sent
20-Aug-16
(AZADI KE PANKH CREATIONS )
20th Aug. 1911
On this day in 1911, a dispatcher in the
New York Times office sends the first telegram around the world via commercial
service. Exactly 66 years later, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) sends a different kind of message–a phonograph record
containing information about Earth for extraterrestrial beings–shooting into
space aboard the unmanned spacecraft Voyager II.
The Times decided to send its 1911 telegram
in order to determine how fast a commercial message could be sent around the
world by telegraph cable. The message, reading simply “This message sent around
the world,” left the dispatch room on the 17th floor of the Times building in
New York at 7 p.m. on August 20. After it traveled more than 28,000 miles,
being relayed by 16 different operators, through San Francisco, the
Philippines, Hong Kong, Saigon, Singapore, Bombay, Malta, Lisbon and the
Azores–among other locations–the reply was received by the same operator 16.5
minutes later. It was the fastest time achieved by a commercial cablegram since
the opening of the Pacific cable in 1900 by the Commercial Cable Company.
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