On August 5, 1858, the first telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean was completed, largely through the efforts of American merchant Cyrus West Field. The telegraph was developed in the 1830s by Samuel F. B. Morse, and the first telegram in the U.S. was sent in 1844. In 1854, Cyrus West Field took the invention a step further by developing a way that a cable could be laid on the ocean floor.
