In 1860 the U.S. Congress arranged among the telegraph companies a competition to create a national line. The winner was Western Union. Another invention of Western Union - time synchronization. In 1866, Sibley ordered the engineers to develop a Western Union telegraph system of stock quotes in real time. July 3, 1884 the company's shares were included in the calculation base for the newly created stock index Dow Jones Transportation Average. 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. Before transition to remittances Western Union company rendered services on sphere of cable communication. In 2000 was launched the Web site westernunion.com, with which users from certain countries can independently transfer funds online. The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States.