History of Television

[Kevin Arnold]

I've always had an interest in the history of television, both locally and nationally.  Locally, Dick Golembiewski has posted an excellent, complete history that you can find here:

Milwaukee TV History

Compiling this took a lot of work as the information is not in any one or two places.

Nationally the FCC actually has put together a history of TV from the very early mechanical sets

with the spinning disk creating a picture.  Crude but it did work. Felix the cat was the first "telecast"

The FCC link is here:
FCC's History of Television

There's a nice section on the World's Fair of 1939 and RCA's demo of the then new B&W television system.


The first color TV system was actually developed by CBS in about 1948 and was nothing like today's electronic system.  It consisted of a B&W Tv with a 3 color spinning disk in front to provide the color.  Surprisingly, it was used mostly by the drug giant Smith Kline and French to televise surgery in living color.  I found these pictures and they're not bad.

The details are interesting and if you're interested, take a look.