1998 - the number of points of money transfers worldwide reached 50,000. The network of money transfers of Western Union is the world's largest. In October 2006 the company made an initial public offering of shares on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming independent from First Data company. In 1933, by the Western Union Company were invented "singing telegrams". Thanks to cooperation with Western Union the Associated Press at the end of the XIX century took almost monopolistic position in the U.S. market news. In October 1871 the company Western Union began to provide money transfer services, drawing on its own extensive telegraph network. 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. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same.