The transatlantic cable allowed for communications between North America and Europe

Around 380 underwater cables power the Internet across the world.

On July 29, 1858, two steam-powered battleships met in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There, they connected two ends of a 4,000 kilometer (2,500 mile) long, 1.5 centimeter (0.6 inch) wide cable, linking for the first time the European and North American continents by telegraph.

The Erie Canal transformed New York City into America’s banking capital

By redirecting western trade through New York Harbor, the canal turned New York into the nation’s commercial hub. This surge in commerce shifted financial power from Philadelphia to Wall Street, establishing the city as America’s banking capital.

Key moments in fintech history include the transatlantic cable’s invention and E-Trade’s founding

Founded in 1982, E-Trade was the first-ever online brokerage, pioneering a method of investing that is common today. Its story is part of a timeline that the New York Times put together of key moments in early fintech history.

Money—not land—became Europe’s key economic driver in the Middle Age

During the medieval commercial revolution, money gradually replaced land as the primary economic commodity. Expanding trade, markets, and finance transformed Europe’s economy—laying foundations, historians argue, that were essential for the later Industrial Revolution.

The Civil War introduced many technological advances to both society and warfare

The conflict accelerated innovations—including railroads, telegraphs, ironclad ships, and mass-produced weapons—while advances in photography, medicine, and manufacturing transformed how Americans communicated, healed, and built after the war.

ATMs drastically expanded access to checking accounts in the 1960s

The invention disrupted the local bank industry, allowing customers to access cash around the clock and when out of town. The innovation also reduced the headcount needed for bank services and created a new revenue stream via ATM fees for noncustomers. This 50-year anniversary retrospective revisits the cash kiosk.

Mapping the route options between the Pacific and Atlantic

This map shows some of the alternative trade route options that are available to shipping companies, from overland routes that rely on railways to transport goods coast-to-coast, to Arctic Ocean passages.

European colonization contributed to coffee's spread

European colonization created channels for large-scale coffee exports with workforces based in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Trade routes throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world carried the drink to new shores and changed the agricultural and economic landscapes of the countries in the Bean Belt.

Railroads and long-distance communication led to the development of time zones

Noon had been determined independently at each location based on when the sun was highest in the sky, but this became impractical for standardizing transportation. British star-mapping and navigation advancements established Greenwich as the prime meridian through Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT.

Trans-Atlantic and intra-American slavery: a visual database

This interactive database provides insight into the trading of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. This database offers maps, articles, timelapses, videos of 3D slave ship models, and searchable databases on enslavers and the enslaved. According...

J.P. Morgan provided Nikola Tesla with funding for the Wardenclyffe Tower

The structure was part of a project to transmit electricity and communication signals wirelessly across the globe. Shortly after construction began, Guglielmo Marconi beat Tesla to the punch and transmitted a trans-Atlantic signal, preventing Tesla from getting additional funding to finish his project.

One in five 16th century Spanish ships sank while crossing the Atlantic

Despite the incredibly high rate of catastrophic wrecks, during the Age of Exploration Spanish investors continued to fund voyages. Here, economists break down the incentives that led to increased risk, including short travel seasons and the propensity to overload ships.

Television transformed college football into a national spectacle

The rise of televised games in the mid-20th century expanded college football’s reach far beyond campus stadiums—turning regional rivalries into national events, boosting revenue, and cementing the sport as a Saturday tradition across the country.

Commercial air travel made international vacations more commonplace

Long-distance commercial flights became more common in the 1980s, allowing tourists to travel internationally more easily. For those who could afford it, travel by airplane allowed them to see everything the world had to offer, harkening back to the philosophy of the Grand Tour.

250 years of world trade history

Adam Smith’s revolutionary ideas about free trade were often ignored throughout American history to protect domestic industry—until World War II caused a shift in sentiment about global trade.

Before the invention of transistors, vacuum tubes made radio possible

Discovered by Thomas Edison, vacuum tubes allow electrical currents to travel through empty space. Later modified into a diode—keeping current flowing in only one direction—vacuum tubes allowed electronics to turn alternating current into direct current.

Listen to a podcast episode from 1440's editor in chief that explains how a credit card transaction works behind the scenes.

When you buy even something as small as a $5 latte, a global relay between banks and networks like Visa and Mastercard is triggered. It all started with a 1958 campaign from Bank of America that jump-started the credit card revolution.

Visualizing the economic impacts of 5G

5G is set to revamp industries around the world, but the benefits may not be equally distributed. This nifty graphic illustrates what the global landscape may look like in 2035.

The benefits of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology

At the root of cryptocurrencies' allure is blockchain technology, an innovation bringing profound transformations to industries, especially the financial industry. This simple article breaks down the difference between cryptocurrencies and blockchain as well as the benefits of each.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

Airbus is a rare European industrial success story that overtook a rival American firm

After World War II, the US dominated aviation, particularly Boeing. To compete, Europe's major industrial nations pooled resources to form Airbus, a customer-centric airplane manufacturer. Its A320 family of planes became the most popular in airliner history, leading to profitability in the 1990s. Amid Boeing's major hurdles in recent years, Airbus remains the industry leader.

Mapping the world's 25 largest stock exchanges

Totaling a market capitalization of $106T (as of 2023), this map identifies the major stock exchanges worldwide on a map, ranking them by total market value. Nearly half of that value is located in the Americas.

Learn about various ocean-atmosphere cycles impacting global weather patterns

Although the El Niño-Southern Oscillation is among the most impactful, the North Atlantic Oscillation strongly influences weather patterns in the Northeast US by periodically changing atmospheric pressure over the Atlantic. The North Pacific Oscillation fluctuates atmospheric pressure and sea-surface temperatures that affect winter temperatures over much of the US.

Anti-money laundering laws forcing banks to report data have become important foreign policy tools

Since the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which required banks to report transactions exceeding $10K and keep records on customers, anti-money laundering laws have become an important proxy for American foreign policy initiatives. Increased regulation via financial institutions helps curb drug and human trafficking, as well as destabilize the financial infrastructure for terrorist organizations.

From 2014-25, US private sector data center investments have increased more than 25-fold

The annualized rate of US data center construction has ballooned from $1.6B to $41.1B, creating a market for data centers whose infrastructure costs and land, power, and transmission capacity demands rival those of offices and industrial facilities.

COBOL was partly derived from Grace Hopper's FLOW-MATIC programming language

The Common Business-Oriented Language was developed for business data processing, supporting precise decimal calculations and an English-like syntax. Able to work across operating systems and hardware environments, COBOL and its newer versions support 80% of in-person credit card transactions and 95% of all ATM transactions.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Venture capital is a form of funding provided to early-stage companies with high growth potential, typically in exchange for an equity (or ownership) stake

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.