In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. 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. One of the common kinds of money transfer is a transfer via the international system of Western Union. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. 1970 - a new service called In 1879 Western Union left the telephone business after losing a lawsuit against Alexander Graham Bell - the patent holder on the phone. In 2000 was launched the Web site westernunion.com, with which users from certain countries can independently transfer funds online.