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Loss of Cable End

When: 1865
Where: Mid-Atlantic
Part of: SS Great Eastern departs to lay the transatlantic cable

The cable end was lost mid-Atlantic during the 1865 voyage, forcing a return in 1866.

The effort went relatively smoothly for several weeks, but the cable end was lost mid-Atlantic in an accident. This forced the ship to return in 1866 with a new line. The 1865 cable was later retrieved and spliced, so two cables were in service.

Sources

SS Great Eastern Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-01
Transatlantic telegraph cable Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-15

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.