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American Experience
1988
Published on, 1 month ago
American Experience
The Great Transatlantic Cable 17 Season 7 Episode
55 min
1988
6.6
Cyrus Field's struggle to lay telegraph cables across the Atlantic in the 1850s and '60s is chronicled. When Field finally succeeded, in 1866, it marked "the annihilation of space and time," says historian David Czitrom. But the 13-year effort -- recalled here in re-creations and comments from historians and engineers -- included many false starts and one spectacular failure. Still, says Czitrom, "he never let up."
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