Air Date: Week of December 27, 1996

Facts about... telecommunications milestones.

Transcript

CURWOOD: In the course of researching Living on Earth's almanac we've run across odd facts which sometimes tell a story of their own. For example, 130 years ago, the entrepreneur Cyrus Field finally succeeded, after 2 failures, in laying the first underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe. One hundred and ten years ago Richard Sears started selling watches via telegraph, giving birth to both telemarketing and Sears Roebuck. Seventy years ago the National Broadcasting Company made its on-air debut with a radio network of 24 stations. Forty-five years ago direct dial coast to coast telephone service began. And 25 years ago there were 23 computer hosts on the Arvanet, the precursor of what we now call the Internet. Today, there are more than 12 million hosts. Now, we haven't figured out what if any environmental impact all this has had, but we do know that the World Wide Web has become an important source of information. And if you care to learn more about us, our web address is www.loe.org.