The world has actually been wired together by digital communications systems for a century and a half. Nothing that has happened during that time compares in its impact to the first exchange of messages between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan in 1858. That was so impressive that a mob of celebrants poured into the streets of New York and set fire to City Hall.

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist

“Mother Earth Mother Board,” Wired, 4.12 (1996)