The Start of Television
A six year-old commented, "TV is so necessary. What would I do
without it?" I told him TV is a rather new invention and the
idea of it dawned on its makers about a century ago. It is a
stirring thought that something playing such an important role
in a little child's life is so young, as an invention.
Television is the third invention after electricity and radio to
have a life-shaping, magnetic influence on the masses. The word
television loosely means to see far. While public and commercial
television stations address masses, cable stations try to
attract audiences with specific tastes. In addition to
augmenting programs, security and surveillance problems are
handled in schools, businesses, and hospitals through
closed-circuit television.
Since many scientists were involved in the way the television
technology has evolved, we cannot call any one person its
inventor. Television was first thought to be possible as early
as the 1800's when it was understood that radio communication
signals could be sent through the air.
In 1831, Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry were the first
scientists to experiment with electromagnetism, therefore
establishing a start for electrical communication. They were
followed by Samuel Morse in 1844 with his invention of the
telegraph and then by Abbe Giovanni Caselli an Italian, who
first sent images over a distance using a pantelegraph. In 1873
two the Englishmen, May and Smith, used selenium and light with
the idea to transform images into electrical signals. After
George Carey's system of selenium cells in 1880, Paul Nipkow
patented the first mechanical television scanner in Germany.
Marconi's morse code by wireless also played a role in the
development of television.
In 1906, Lee DeForest developed a vacuum tube to amplify
signals. Then using the German Carl Ferdinand Braun's
cathode-ray tube invented in 1897 with the Nipkow disk, Boris
Rosing of Russia invented a system as the world's first
television in 1907. In 1908, A.A.Campbell-Swinton of Scotland
came up with the proposal of an all electronic television. In
1922, Philo T. Farnsworth, a sixteen year-old US citizen,
developed an electrical scanning system. At about the same time
in 1923, Iconoscope--an electronic camera tube--was patented by
Vladimir Zworykin, who also produced the Kinescope, a picture
display tube. John Logie Baird was the first to get an actual
television picture, but Zworykin took the first patent for color
television, being the one person who had made the most
contribution during the first developmental stages of
television.
In 1927, the pictures of Herbert Hoover, US Secretary of
commerce, were sent over two hundred miles from Washington to
New York, and in 1928 W2XBS became RCA's first television
station in New York City. This was when the first television
star, Felix the Cat, was created.
The first television drama "The Queen's Messenger" also came to
the screen in 1928. Still during this year, John Logie Baird
sent London's images to New York via shortwave. The first
television commercial was in the air in 1930 by Charles Jenkins.
Also in 1930, BBC started its regular programming. In 1931,
VE9EC--Canada's first tv station--and in the USA, RCA from the
Empire State Building began transmissions on an experimental
basis.
In 1935, France began its television transmissions from the
Eiffel Tower and Germany established a three day-a-week
transmission service. CBC in Canada was formed in 1936. Right
that year, Allen B. Du Mont manufactured the first TV set for
sale to the North American public.
An interesting highlight in television transmission happened
during World War II. As soon as the war started in 1939,
September 1, BBC television stopped broadcasting in the middle
of a Mickey Mouse Cartoon and in 1945 resumed the cartoon's
showing, starting where it left off in 1939, which makes one
wonder what the British children thought of the broadcasters.
By the time the first color television transmission started in
1951, there were over one hundred television stations in the
USA. In 1979 there were three hundred million television sets
flickering on and off, and by the year 2000, about one and three
quarters billion television sets were estimated to exist in
operation worldwide.
With the arrival of high-definition and plasma TV's and the talk
of computerized TV's or computer and TV combinations,
twenty-first century is promising a great deal more of
entertainment and education to its viewers worldwide. In
bringing the cultures together, let's hope we make the best use
of it.