Hacker News Reader

They didn't have the internet back then bro, information moved much slower. Governments (USA Included) tend to move much slower than tech.

Germ Theory starting -only- 8 years prior doesn't really mean much here...

View on HN

Things taking a year or two was normal, but 8 years is plenty of time. There were long distance publications in many areas of the world even earlier in time. You can look at how every back in the 1700s Benjamin Franklin had a newspaper across the US and routinely corresponded with Europe.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com