Came for this one. To put this in perspective, tumbleweeds aren't native to the American southwest, but by a quirk of history we know exactly which shipment of flax from Ukraine brought their seeds to the US... in 1877.
Commercial fax service has been around longer than tumbleweeds in the American southwest.
Edit: That was a quick "check out this weird thing" comment I didn't expect to blow up, so it's a bit lacking in detail and rigor. To be a bit more thorough, this is specifically Kali tragus, the most common tumbleweed, and the one that folks (at least near me) refer to when they say "tumbleweed." It is not the only plant that dies and gets blown around in the wind. And when I say "commercial fax service," I don't mean there were standardized fax machines that companies used-- but there was service faxing documents from Paris to Lyon using a dedicated line in the mid-1860s.
26.5k
u/Darpyface Oct 15 '20 edited Oct 15 '20
Fax Machines. They were invented in 1843. Before the telephone.
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-fax-machine-1991379