April 23 in Victorian History
What the Victorians were up to on this date, year by remarkable year.
1838
Steam conquers the Atlantic
The little paddle-steamer Sirius reaches New York in the morning, eighteen days out of Cork; hours later Brunel's Great Western arrives from Bristol, four days the quicker ship's junior by departure. They are the first vessels to cross the Atlantic under sustained steam power, cutting the westward passage nearly in half. The age of the ocean liner — and of mass emigration by steam — begins on this day.