Western Union has taken of 451st position in the rating Fortune 500 in 2009, having moved from 473rd line in 2008. Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. In the 80's of Nineteenth century, Western Union was repeatedly tried capture by the railroad tycoon Jay Gould. He worked with Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first phone. In 1864, fearing the laying of long underwater lines, Western Union offered to carry out laying of telegraph lines to Europe through the Russian Alaska under the narrow Bering Strait and then to Siberia with branching in the major cities of Europe. In 1933, by the Western Union Company were invented "singing telegrams". In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. Western Union incomes for 2007 have made $4,9 billion US dollars, and the quantity of transactions has made 572 million. In 1879 Western Union left the telephone business after losing a lawsuit against Alexander Graham Bell - the patent holder on the phone. Sibley, the founder of Western Union, did not build a new telegraph lines, and persuaded the other players to join. American Telegraph Company, however, still had to buy it.