The Associated Press has been breaking news since it was created in 1846. That year, five New York City newspapers got together to fund a pony express route through Alabama in order to bring news of the Mexican War north more quickly than the U.S. Post Office could deliver it. In the decades since, AP has been first to tell the world of many of history’s most important moments, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the fall of the shah of Iran and the death of Pope John Paul. More than 30 AP journalists have given their lives in this pursuit of the news. “I go with Custer and will be at the death,” AP reporter Mark Kellogg wrote before Custer’s final stand against the Sioux. And so he was. One reason for AP’s longevity has been its ability to adapt quickly to new technologies. When it was founded, words were the only medium of communication. The first private sector organization in the U.S. to operate on a national scale, AP delivered news by pigeon, pony express, railroad, steamship, telegraph and teletype in the early years. In 1935, AP began sending photographs by wire. A radio network was formed in 1973, and an international video division was added in 1994. In 2005, a digital database was created to hold all AP content, which has allowed the agency to deliver news instantly and in every format to the ever expanding online world. Today, AP news moves in digital bits that travel nearly as quickly as the news itself unfolds, to every platform available, from newspaper to tablets. AP’s video division is now the world’s leading video news agency.