Video: 'The World's First Transatlantic Cable : Documentary on the First Transatlantic Telegraph Cable' (Aug. 16, 1858, at 31:04)

(Monday, August 16, 1858, 7:00 p.m. local time) — Britain’s Queen Victoria inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable today, sending a telegram of congratulations to U.S. President James Buchanan at his summer residence at the Bedford Springs Hotel in Pennsylvania, expressing hope that it would prove “an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on their common interest and reciprocal esteem.”

While Queen Victoria’s message of 98 words took sixteen hours to send, the new technology would eventually reduce the communication time between North America and Europe to a matter of minutes from ten days, the time it took to deliver a message by ship.

Buchanan responded that, “it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove 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.”