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Guglielmo Marconi, a young inventor from Bologna, Italy, was one of the first to develop the concept of the “radio”and successfully transmit a message through radio waves. In 1895, after conducting his own transmitter, he succeeded in sending a morse code message across a distance of one and a half miles. Shortly after, he received a patent in England for the radio.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1909/marconi/biographical/ -
In 1900 at the Paris World’s Fair, Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi coined the term “Television” in reference to electrically transmitting images.
https://www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/Exposition-Universelle-de-1900.html -
In 1907 Scottish engineer Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton and Russian physicist Boris Rosing simultaneously developed a method of electronic scanning to reproduce images using cathode ray tubes.
https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-television -
In 1925, Scottish inventor John Baird was able to transmit nearly recognizable human faces over wire circuits and only a year later found success in televising moving objects.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Logie-Baird -
In 1930, American engineer Charles Francis Jenkins broadcasts the first TV commercial. In the same year, the BBC began regular TV transmissions.
https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/history-of-british-television-timeline/ -
On October 30th of 1938, Orson Welles, a radio host aired his “War of Worlds” broadcast, a radio play based on an older novel in which Martians invade New Jersey. Many listeners mistook the broadcast as an actual piece of breaking news and hysterical panic spread all across the country.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/
https://radiolab.org/podcast/war-worlds -
On September 26th, 1960, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy debated for the presidency to an estimated audience of 70 million viewers. It was the first televised presidential debate and simultaneously the first split-screen broadcast.
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/october-21/#:~:text=Nixon%20and%20Democratic%20Senator%20John,as%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20Great%20Debates.%E2%80%9D
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