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Today is September13, 2026 Sunday.

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The World in 1866 the year a wire crossed the Atlantic

Cholera came back that summer. In the east end of London it killed thousands in a few weeks, and the water company that served those streets was blamed for pumping unfiltered river water into the pipes. In Germany a Swedish chemist found that nitroglycerin soaked into a chalky earth could be carried in a cart without blowing up. He called it dynamite, and tunnel builders bought all he could make. Generals were learning their own new trick, moving whole armies by rail.

The year in 8 events

Before the cable worked, a message from London to New York went by ship and took about ten days. After the end of July it took minutes.

• 💥Mar 31 A Spanish fleet shells the port of Valparaiso in Chile and burns its warehouses.
• 🕯️May 1 Three days of attacks on Black neighbourhoods begin in Memphis, Tennessee.
• ⚔️Jun 2 Irish American veterans who crossed into Canada are beaten at Ridgeway, near Niagara.
• ⚔️Jul 3 Prussia crushes the Austrian army at Koniggratz in Bohemia. Austria is pushed out of German affairs.
• 🚢Jul 20 Austrian ironclads ram and sink Italian ones off Lissa, the first battle between armoured fleets.
• 📡Jul 27 The steamship Great Eastern lands a telegraph cable from Ireland in Newfoundland, and this one works.
• 🤝Aug 23 The Treaty of Prague ends the war after seven weeks. Prussia keeps what it took.
• 🏹Dec 21 Lakota and Cheyenne fighters wipe out a column of 81 soldiers on the Bozeman Trail in Wyoming.

Who Was in Charge?

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