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Thomas L. Talley opens this theater in Los Angles and is the home of the first Nickelodeon that is later a multimedia movie palace that encouraged imitators nationwide.
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John Ambrose Fleming develops the first vacuum tube that is later called a valve.
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Charles Herrold and Ray Newby experiment "wireless" voice and music broadcasts from San Jose, California and use radio station call letters "FN" and "SJN". The transmission of voices was with a series of arching street lamps under liquid.
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Mary Pickford becomes the first motion picture star with her silent films.
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Charles Herrold begins the first regular public radio broadcasting of voice and music from his "wireless telegraph college" in California. It is called "The Herrold Station" and is transmitted across from San Jose to San Francisco.
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Cylinders are replaced by disk recordings. Columbia stops the use of cylinders.
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Cecil B. DeMille and Jesse Lasky produce the first feature-length film called "The Squaw Man".
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From New York to San Francisco, on July 29th, the first transcontinental telephone call was made.
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Western Union issues the first consumer charge card.
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Electrical records replace acoustic disks by a process developed by Western Electric.
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Vitaphone introduces a sound system to synchronize music and sound effects with a motion picture.
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Scotsman John Logie Baird invents the first mechanical television.
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Warner Bros. film "Don Juan" contains music composed by William Axt due to the development of a 33 1/3 rpm disk system that synchronizes a music track from Bell Laboratories.
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"National Broadcasting Company" is the first radio network that was inaugrated on Nov. 15 with a celebration at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, NY.
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Philo Farnsworth transmits the first "electric television" picture in his San Francisco Laboratory.
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The "Columbia Broadcasting System" begins radio broadcasting.
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In the United States, a young comedian named Milton Berle is the first peron seen on television, on an experimental broadcast.
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Billboard Magazine publishes its first music chart of performed songs.
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The Edison Co. ceases the manufacturing of sound recordings.
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The West Coast "Don Lee" chain of radio stations joins the CBS radio network.
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Philo Farnsworth transmits the first TV picture of a living person - his wife - on Oct. 19, in his San Francisco laboratory; the picture is only about 3 1/2 inches square.
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To improve TV pictures, German scientist Fritz Schroeter applies for a patent on interlaced scanning.
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Vladimir Zworykin applies for a patent on a TV camera vacuum tube he calls the "Iconoscope."
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An experimental "binaural" phonograph system is created by Bell laboratories.
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The Duke Ellington recording of "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing starts the "swing music" dance craze.
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The first episode of "The Lone Ranger" radio series debuts on radio station WXYZ in Detroit.
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The Mutual Broadcasting System (MBS) begins operation on September 15.
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A National radio hit advertising is written by Eric Siday and Ginger Johnson.
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The Audio Engineering Society (The AES) is formed.
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Zenith introduces the "Lazy Boy" -- the first television remote control (it had a cable.)
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CBS television broadcast the first color TV program to five cities on June 25th.
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The first ID jingle company to "sing-over" pre-recorded backgrounds - PAMS, Inc. is formed in Dallas, Texas by former radio studio musician Bill Meeks on August 20, 1951.
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The "CBS Eye" network logo debuts on September 10, 1951.
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The first episode of "I Love Lucy" aired on Monday, October 15th on the CBS Television Network.
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The Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA) is formed.
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The first pre-recorded reel-to-reel tape (at 7 1/2 ips) is offered for sale.
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On March 25, the first color television sets rolled out of the RCA Victor factory in Bloomington, Indiana.
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The NBC Peacock logo debuts in July designed by Fred Knapp and John J. Graham.
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Sony introduces the first "solid-state" TV set, using transistors instead of vacuum tubes.
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FM Stereo radio broadcasting begins and FM slowly starts to gain respect.
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Compact stereo tape cassettes and players are developed by Phillips.
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Douglas C. Engelbart demonstrates the first computer mouse (made of wood.)
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AT&T introduces the PicturePhone at the Worlds' Fair, but it doesn't catch.
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The "Dolby-A" professional noise reduction system is used in some recording studios.
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The "Dolby-B" noise reduction system is introduced for consumer reel-to-reel and cassette tape recorders.
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The first Microprocessor (computer on a chip) is introduced by Intel -- the 4004.
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Gloria Gaynor records "Never Can Say Goodbye" -- the first disco record on US radio.
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Atari of Santa Clara, CA develops "Pong" -- the first electronic computer arcade game.
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Bill Gates drops out of Harvard, moves to New Mexico to develop software for the new MIPS Altair "micro-computer" with Paul Allen under the name "MicroSoft."
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The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", is the first hip-hop record to reach Top 40 radio.
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The MTV Music TV Cable Network debuts on the air at Midnight, August 1st.
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The digital Compact Disc (CD) is introduced by a Japanese conglomerate.
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The first CD released (in Japan) is Billy Joel's "52nd Street" (October, 1982.)
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NBC broadcasts the first television programs with stereo sound.
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The Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA) announces on June 19 that CDs have overtaken LP sales in the U.S.
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Phillips introduces a digital audio tape recorder (DAT) using a digital casette.
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Tim Berners-Lee finishes programming the first practical Web Brower which becomes known as "Nexus".
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Personal computers outsell TV sets for the first time in the United States.
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The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) increases capacity of digital storage of audio and video on a CD.