From: http://www.lark.ieee.ca/library/hearts-content/heart.htm:
Cyrus Field's dream of virtually instantaneous communications between continents became a reality on a foggy July morning in 1866...The vast network of telegraph lines connecting the major cities in Europe and another on the North American mainland begged a bridging of the enormous gap between them.
Frederick Gisborne and Cyrus Field envisioned using the Islands of Newfoundland and Ireland as the points of departure for their trans-Atlantic submarine cable. The fishing community of Heart's Content, Newfoundland was eventually selected for what turned out to be the first successful venture in 1866.
On a misty foggy July morning in 1866 with the wind west to southwest, the Great Eastern, a ship originally built to ferry immigrants to Australia and to alternate as a troop ship for the British army in India, hove in view off the tiny community of Heart's Content in Newfoundland.
She had a strange mission-a cargo which she methodically discharged over the side, foot by foot, on her long voyage from Valentia, in Ireland, some 1,800 miles distance. The first successful trans-Atlantic communication cable had been laid between the old and new worlds.
