The Western Union Company - the American company, specialising on granting of services of monetary intermediary. Western Union was founded in 1851. The company is one of leaders in the market of the international remittances. 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. Separation of the companies had two objectives: first, to give Western Union the opportunity to develop more intensively, and secondly, to help First Data to return to its original activity (in 1992 the company separated from the payment system of American Express as an independent financial services company). By 1861 Western Union telegraph lines entangled the whole America. It's time to explore Europe. 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 1856, in 7 years after the foundation of New York State Printing Telegraph Company, the company changed its name to Western Union Telegraph Company.