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Vladmir Zworkin created and patented an iconoscope, which is basically a TV camera tube referred to as 'the electric eye'.
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Philo Farnsworth was the first inventor to successfully transmit a television image. This image was compromised of 60 horizontal lines, and the image that was transmitted was a dollar sign. He filed for this first television patent in 1927.
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General Electric made this early television as part of their experimental TV program in Schenectady, New York. The first TV drama, the Queen's Messenger, was produced in September of that year by GE. Developed by Ernst W. Alexanderson, this mechanical television receiver was built for a 48-line television system.
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This unit provided only the sound and the electrical signal to drive a separate R-400 display unit. The R-400 display unit housed a motor-driven pinhole scanning disk and neon lamp.
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The first news story was aired by BBC on November 30, 1936. This report showed a fire at London's Crystal Palace. The Palace was destroyed.
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The first baseball game ever televised was between Princeton Universtiy and Columbia University. Princeton beat Columbia 2-1 at Columbia's Baker Field. Baker Field is now known as the birthplace of sports television.
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In 1940, CBS researchers led by Peter Goldmark invented a mechanical color television system. The system was bulky, flickered, and was not compatible with earlier black and white sets.
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On July 1, 1941, the first television commercial was aired, This commercial aired before a Brooklyn Dodgers and a Philidelphia Phillies game began. The commercial was 10 seconds long, and featured Bulova clocks and watches. The ad shows a clock and a map of the United States, with a voice-over that says, “America runs on Bulova time.”
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USA has been experimenting with TV-guided missiles in Pacific. In 1944, the first combat employment of a missile guided by radio and television took place when Navy drone Liberator, controlled by Ensign James M. Simpson in a PV, flew to attack German submarine pens on Helgoland Island.
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The FCC authorized CBS's color television technology as the national standard in October of 1950, despite it's inconvenient faults, such as the large size of the set. RCA sued to stop the public broadcasting of CBS based systems.
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NBC broadcasts the first coast-to-coast color program, the Rose Bowl Parade, to the 200 sets able to receive
RCA's electronic color system. -
Ampex introduces the first practical videotape system of broadcast quality. This system was called VRX-1000 and it was demonstrated on April 14th, 1956. It was renamed the Mark IV and sold briskly at $50,000
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The first split screen broadcast occurs on the Kennedy-Nixon debates. 70 million American viewers watched the first of four televised presidential debates between the two candidates. They were the first debates ever to be held between the presidential nominees of the two major parties during the election season.
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Walter Cronkite first reports "President Kennedy died at 1:00 p.m. central standard time." The on-camera murder
of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby is telecast live. His voice was at first heard over a blank screen in a CBS news bulletin, then he reported live for four days on the president's condition. His most unforgettable moment was when he removed his glasses to break the fateful news. -
The first Super Bowl was aired on January 15, 1967. The game featured the Greenbay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Packers won 35-10 and was played before 61,946 fans in Los Angeles' 100,000-seat Memorial Coliseum. The television audience for this game is estimated to have been approximately 60 million viewers.
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All in the Family is the first sitcom to be videotaped but more importantly breaks new ground as it deals
openly with the bigotry and narrow-mindedness of its lead character. Episodes treat controversial subjects
like prejudice, abortion, and homosexuality and the series makes it to the top of the ratings in its first season,
where it stays through 1975. It aired on January 12, 1971, and was shown on CBS television network. -
VHS home recording format is introduced on September 9, 1976. It is presented by the president of JVC. It was called the HR-3300. Weighing 30 pounds, it was smaller and lighter than its competitors.
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Roots is the first television mini-series. It first aired on ABC-TV, and featured the story of an African boy named Kunta Kinte who was stolen by slave traders. Kunta was shipped to America, where he became a slave.
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The MTV network premieres, aiming at the 18-24 age bracket with its music videos and reality programming. The first video aired on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by television personalities known as "video jockeys," or VJs.
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David Letterman begins decades of late-night talk show success with Late Night with David Letterman. Bill Murray, a famous actor, was the first guest on this show.
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Stereo sound in television broadcasting is available in all major U.S. population centers. NBC and ABC had aggressively utilized stereo sound in their broadcasts. In the wake of its introduction, electronics companies actively marketed stereo television receivers and broadcast programs proudly displayed words and/or logos in show openings, which alerted audiences that the program was being presented with stereo sound
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The 1990 Children's Television Act, Pub. L. No. 101-437, 104 Stat. 996, is the first congressional act that
specifically regulated children's television. The goal was to enhance television's potential to teach the nation's children valuable information and skillsOne of its requirements was a minimum of 3 hours per week of
educational programming. Some stations tried to claim The Flintstones was a history program. -
The first generation of direct broadcast satellite systems, Primestar, is launched by a consortium of cable
system owners. PrimeStar was a medium-powered DBS-style system utilizing FSS technology that used a larger 3-foot (91 cm) satellite dish to receive signals. -
PBS Online debuts after a noticing a growing trend in using the Internet. It was very similar to the broadcast network model.
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According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American adult watched 4 hours of television daily in the year 2001. This adds up to 28 hours of TV per week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year.
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Star Wars: Attack of the Clones is the first big budget film shot with digital cameras. Some notable actors in this film are Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Ewan McGregor.
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Sony buys MGM Studios for $5 billion, gaining the world's largest movie library, over 7,000 titles, and with
estimates of the DVD-related value of those titles at over $1 billion per year. -
"Louie" is voted number one TV show of 2011
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"The Blacklist" was voted best TV show of 20112
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A History of Scotland is a television series first broadcast
