In the early forties of the 20th century, Western Union has used the first time a commercial intercity microwave transmission system. In April 1851 companions registered in Albany New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company (NYMVPTC), which included founded two years before New York State Printing Telegraph Company. 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 2007 the company made 167.7 million transactions on money transfers between individuals and 404.6 million transactions between physical and legal persons. In 1914 Western Union engineers invented the first payment card - a prototype of the modern credit card. 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. The first offices of company were located in the Reynolds Arcade building in Rochester, New York. The sign above the main entrance to the building -