The Lumiere Brothers use (piano) music with a motion picture program (of short subjects) for the first time
Shellac gramophone disks developed by Emile Berliner
Eldredge Johnson perfects first system of mass duplication of pre-recorded flat disks
"The Electric Theater" in Los Angeles is opened by Thomas L. Tally: the first Nickelodeon, a multimedia movie palace, that spawned imitators nationwide;
RCA Victor's "Victrola" model record player is introduced.
Lee de Forest is granted a patent on January 15 for the first triode (three-element) vacuum tube which he calls the "Audion
Disk recordings overtake cylinders in the popular market
Edison Co. finally introduces a disk player
Western Union introduces the first consumer charge card
AT&T engineer C. G. Hensley got the idea for the loudspeaker when he thought about what would happen if he made a telephone receiver really big.
- The Orig. Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) makes the first "Jazz" recording.
The first automatic "record changer" turntable is patented for a stack of 78's
- Electrical records replace acoustic discs
Vitaphone introduces a sound system to synchronize music and sound effects with a motion picture
Scotsman John Logie Baird invents mechanical television which he calls a "Televisor", a postcard-sized black and pink image
- Bell Laboratories develops a 33 1/3 rpm disk system to synchronize a music track for the Warner Brothers film "Don Juan"
CBS - the "Columbia Broadcasting System" begins radio broadcasting
a young comedian named Milton Berle is the first person to be seen on television
Billboard magazine publishes its first music chart of performed songs.
Scotsman John Logie Baird demonstrates his system of mechanical television, transmitting its signal from England to the United States
RCA convinces phonograph labels including its own Victor label as well as Columbia and other manufacturers to standardize on 78.26 rpm as the speed of all phonograph records
The Edison Co. ceases the manufacturing of sound recordings
The Duke Ellington recording of "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing" starts the "swing music" dance craze.
RCA laboratories work on a 33 1/3 rpm record system, but the system fails because the material does not stand up to repeated plays
Vladimir Zworykin applies for a patent on a TV camera vacuum tube he calls the "Iconoscope
An experimental "binaural" phonograph system is created by Bell laboratories. The two channels of sound were on separate grooves of a 78rpm vinyl record, requiring
Richard M. Hollingshead opened the first Drive-In Movie Theater in Camden, NJ
Western Union introduces the first "singing telegram" service
Harry Lubke, a former associate of Philo Farnsworth, builds an electronic television transmitter
AEG/Telefunken exhibits the first magnetic tape recorder in Germany
The first "3-strip Technicolor" feature-length motion picture -- "Becky Sharp" is made by simultaneously exposing three black & white camera negatives through colored filters
National radio hit advertising jingle "Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot" is written by Eric Siday and Ginger Johnson, adapted from the tune of an 18th-century English hunting song titled "John Peel". Johnson-Siday would write early
1972 - Atari of Santa Clara, CA develops "Pong" -- the first electronic computer arcade game.
1974 - The first all solid-state video cameras are introduced using Bell Labs "CCD" (charge-coupled device) instead of an Image Orthicon or Plumbicon camera tube
The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", is the first hip-hop record to reach Top 40 radio
The MTV Music TV Cable Network debuts on the air at Midnight
The first IBM-brand "PC" (for "Personal Computer") is released
The digital Compact Disc (CD) is introduced by a Japanese conglomerate.
1982 - The first CD released (in Japan) is Billy Joel's "52nd Street"
NBC broadcasts the first television programs with stereo sound
The Apple Macintosh personal computer debuts with a Graphical User Interface advertised as "the computer for the rest of us
CEDAR Audio Ltd. of Cambridge, England develops a Noise Reduction system to fix clicks, pops and crackle from old records re-mastered for release on CD's
Phillips introduces a digital audio tape recorder (DAT) using a digital casette
soundcan developeds barcode tracking system for music
The Moving Picture Experts Group MPEG-1 Audio Layer III (MP3) compressed audio file format becomes an international standard, and eventually the most popular format for distributing digital audio over the Internet.
Personal computers outsell TV sets for the first time in the United States
The online auction community eBay starts out as "AuctionWeb.com", programmed by General Magic engineer Pierre Omidyar who started it as a hobby project
The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) increases capacity of digital storage of audio and video on a CD (Compact Disc) medium; can store on to 4.7 GigaBytes per side; double-sided disks are possible though rare...
First regular transmissions of HDTV (High-Definition Television) begin in major cities
Internet music-swapping site "Napster" is created, and alarms the recording industry which mounts a massive campaign to shut it down
Consumer DVD recorders were introduced at the Comdex Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas priced at $1000
Digital electronic books (E-Books) become a small part of the publishing industry, and several competing companies attempt to introduce the standards for them
DVD video disk players outsell VHS video cassette recorder/players for the first time.
The TV screen gets more junked up by "crawls" -- banners at the bottom of the screen, and other distracting divisions of the screen in imitation of computer desktops.
Reminiscent of VHS/Betamax, an alternate standard for consumer DVD writable disks is introduced to thwart piracy called DVD+RW
Apple Computer introduces the iPod portable music player for playing mp3 files, and it is a big hit, helping re-establish Apple's innovative reputation and improve their bottom line.
Apple Computer introduces a downloadable music service via its iTunes music application, which proved that people would pay 99-cents-per-tune to download music legally in the wake of peer-to-peer free
Retailers Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and Circuit City announce they will stop selling VHS Video Cassette tapes
Apple Computer's online music store integrated into its iTunes software and iPod hardware, sold it's one-billionth song on this date
