The Victorian Internet
summary
A concise history of how 19th-century telegraph projects turn global communication from weeks to minutes: detailed routes and repeaters such as Alice Springs repeater, engineering tradeoffs that make or break a line, and the economics—first-day transatlantic revenue paying off debts and a single 330‑word overland telegram costing three weeks' wages. Covers mechanical systems, the five‑wire and two‑wire electrical designs, the failed 1858 attempt and the later successful transatlantic cable, plus social effects like spam, codes and newswires.
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chapters (15)
- 0:00Start
- 4:17Alice Springs
- 6:07The Repeater Station
- 10:17First Commercial Electric Telegraph in the World
- 12:03Charles Wheatstone
- 13:33Samuel Morse
- 18:07John Brett
- 22:16Why Did the Cable Fail
- 23:07William Thompson
- 24:48Us Transcontinental Cable
- 25:00How Long the Pony Express Lasted
- 25:35Transatlantic Cable
- 28:49Napoleonic Era Nigerian 419 Spam
- 34:08Worldwide Telegraph Network
- 36:39Where Did Newspapers Get Their Names from
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