Western Union transatlantic cables. Map from 1900 showing the submarine and land communications cables (red) operated by the Western Union Telegraph Company both across the Atlantic and to other regions of the world (Europe, North America, northern South America, western and northern Africa, Russia, and the Middle East). The first telegraph cables across the Atlantic were laid in the 1850s and 1860s. The Western Union Telegraph Company formed in 1856 and by 1900 it operated more then a million kilometres of telegraph lines and several international undersea cables. Map published in New York by the American Bank Note Company.