Creosote: The Surprising Most Important Communications Invention

The Victorian Forerunner of the Internet was the Telegraph. The Telegraph curiously was "digital" as the information sent was encoded, the later analog telephone was in this sense a step backwards. Anyway the problem for the development of the telegraph was that the wooden telegraph poles rotted or were eaten by insects. It was the invention of creosote which allowed effective protection of these poles allowing Telegraph to spread across the USA and become a commercial success. The rest is history.