Jeremy Norman’sHistoryofInformation.com Exploring the History of Information and Media through Timelines
Jeremy Norman’s
A: Brooklyn, New York, United States, B: San Francisco, California, United States
Construction of the first Transcontinental Telegraph, with a Pony Express rider passing below. Wood engraving after George M. Ottinger (d. 1919). The transcontinental telegraph did not make the Pony Express redundant because of the high costs of sending a telegram over a long distance, but the transcontinental railroad, completed in 1861, made it far cheaper and faster to send mail over the distance in which the Pony Express briefly operated.
The U.S. Federal Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860, passed June 16, 1860 to subsidize a telegraph line that would complete telegraphic communication between the east and west coast of the United States, incorporated one of the earliest statements of network neutrality:
"messages received from any individual, company, or corporation, or from any telegraph lines connecting with this line at either of its termini, shall be impartially transmitted in the order of their reception, excepting that the dispatches of the government shall have priority. . ." (Wikipedia article on Network neutrality, accessed 12-24-2010).
