Book launch: 'Twenty to the Mile: The Overland Telegraph Line' by Derek Pugh

The Overland Telegraph was the 19th century version of the internet. It was the largest and most important infrastructure project of the period, enabling Australia to connect to the world for the first time via an international network of overland and subsea telegraph cables.

The news and information starved population in the Empire’s furthest colonies embraced this immense leap in technology and never looked back.

Twenty to the Mile celebrates the sesquicentenary of the joining of the Overland Telegraph wires on 22 August 1872. This event ushered in a new era in communications allowing messages to take only hours instead of weeks across a single wire and Morse code messaging system. 

Twenty to the Mile tells the story of the hundreds of men and a few women, who worked on the line, and the role it played in their lives and in some instances their death.

Darwin author Derek Pugh will introduce the OTL and launch the book in this, the sesquicentennial year, of the Overland Telegraph Line. It is a story every Australian should know.