By the late 1920s, the United States had conducted a number of successful experiments with mechanical televisions, some of which were conducted in the early 1930s. Herbert Hoover, then commerce secretary, appeared on a mechanical television set at AT & T in 1929. On the eve of World War II, RCA pushed to accept its television standards for production. Sources: 8
In response, the National Television System Committee, set up by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), made recommendations for electronic television systems and standards. Shortly thereafter, scientists from all over the world set out in search of such a system. The concept, which would later become a functioning television system, was first presented in the first public radio broadcast, which took place on 24 December 1906. Sources: 4, 8
The German inventor Paul Gottlieb Nipkow developed the turntable technology in 1884, which he called the “NipKow disk,” to transmit images via cable. He is credited with being the first to develop a mechanical module for television. Sources: 0, 4
Nipkow is credited with the discovery of the television principle, in which the light intensity of a small part of an image is successively analysed and transmitted. Sources: 0
The first flickering shadows of television were already in the ether before radio was established. In 1920, John Logie Baird patented a series of transparent bars that were used to transmit images to a television. Baird’s 30-line image is the silhouette of a woman, the silhouette glowing on her back and the light reflecting off her face. Sources: 0, 1
In 1923, Vladimir K. Zworykin, a Westinghouse employee, patented the television picture tube icono – scope. Around the time NBC was organizing its radio network, Philo Farnsworth patented a dissector tube and improved the system. Sources: 1
These two independent inventors shared a passion for experimenting with each other to disseminate images. In 2009, the Swann Galleries in New York sold more than 125 photographs documenting the pioneering experiments of Russian-American engineer Vladimir Zworykin, often considered the most important inventor of the electronic television system. Sources: 1, 5
The 1939 New York World’s Fair marked the beginning of sustained television broadcasts in the United States. The partnership between RCA, Westinghouse and General Electric led to the first commercial broadcast in the USA, which was limited to a narrow radius around New York City. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to put television within reach of higher-income families. Sources: 5
Philo Taylor Farnsworth, 21, pictured left, developed what he calls a “working electronic camera tube” in San Francisco. The inventor of the television can be seen in this 1920s photo at the New York World’s Fair in the United States. Inventors of televisions such as John F. Kennedy, John D. Rockefeller Jr. and George Washington had built various systems since 1920, but none was as successful as the first television. Sources: 7
As a teenager growing up in Utah and Idaho, when he was motivated to study the molecular theory of electricity, he read a magazine about the idea of sending images and sounds. Sources: 7
In 1927, the American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth succeeded in what he called “the first successful use of a cathode ray tube for scanning and transmitting images with an electron beam. He developed a new form of camera, the iconoscope, and he did so in 1927. Zworykin was a former Westinghouse employee who patented the television broadcast and reception system. At RCA, he developed the use for cathodes and ray tubes and developed what they called the first commercial television system, cathodode ray tube television. Sources: 9
During his collaboration with Zworykin, Sarnoff sought, acquired, disputed and acquired various patents, including those of Farnsworth, for the development of the cathodode tube television system and its transmission receiver system. Sources: 9
These early developments set the inventors on the path to rapid improvements in the television industry. John L. Baird completed the first actual transmission of images, which led to the rapid development of television in the following years. Within a few years, television stations and networks emerged, and television began to supplement commercial radio. Sources: 6
The technology for producing colour television was first proposed and demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1949, although it did not become available or popular until the 1950s and 1960s. Sources: 3
Baird used a mechanical method that used a combination of a two-way radio and a single-channel high-speed television system. Sources: 3
After World War II, the National Television System Committee (NTSC) worked to develop a fully electronic color system compatible with black and white televisions, and received FCC approval in 1953. Hungarian television engineer Peter Goldmark, led by CBS researchers, used Bairdas “design in 1928 as the basis for the development of a mechanical color television that could reproduce the color seen from the camera lens. A live image of Paddy Naismith is used to demonstrate the effects of color on a television set in early 1950s New York City. Sources: 2, 3
The Scottish inventor John Logie Baird received his patent for the first television set in London on 26 January 1926. There is general agreement, however, that the “first television picture” was created in the 1920s. There are several people who span several decades and several continents and have different theories about the origin of television images. Sources: 2