Chronography of Telephones, Telegraphy,
Radio and TV Broadcasting
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appendix below for Telegraph Lines
29 June 2007, Apple launched the iPhone,
20 May 1999, Bluetooth was announced. See also Computing
14 February 1989. The first of 24 satellites for the Global Positioning System were placed
in orbit.
22 August 1989, British
Telecom launched the first �pocket phones� which worked within 100 metres of a
base station.
3 February 1989, British Telecom banned �chatlines�, because
some people got addicted to them and ran up huge bills which they couldn�t
pay.� One 12-year-old ran up a bill of
�6,000. The Internet had yet to arrive.
1 January 1985, The first mobile
phone call in the UK was made, by Ernie Wise to Vodafone.
23 October 1984. The
end was announced for the old �H� shaped TV aerials, used for the old 405-line
service. The 43
transmitters broadcasting on this frequency were to be closed to make way for
the growing number of mobile and car
phones.
14 April� 1983, The first cordless telephone was introduced in Britain.
29 July 1982, Vladimir Zworykin, Russian-born US pioneer of TV
technology, died aged 92.
1979, The Japanese
technology company Matsushita took out a patent for the first flat screen pocket television, using a liquid crystal display
for the screen.
21 December 1980. A Bill was presented in the UK Parliament separating
the UK post from the telephone services.
24 September� 1979. A remote control
cordless telephone, imported from the USA to UK stores, was declared
illegal in Britain as it had not been allocated a radio frequency. It was on
sale for �260.
10 January 1977, In the UK, a miniature portable TV with a 5
cm screen went on sale.
8 April� 1975, Pagers were launched in Britain.
3 April� 1973, The world�s first ever mobile phone call was made, in New York.
15 October 1967. In Tokyo the Nippon Electric Co was
offering the world�s first commercial television
telephone.
8 October 1965, The
UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson made
the first telephone call as the �2 million, 620 foot tall, Post Office Tower in
London�s Tottenham Court Road opened.
18 December 1963. The
push button phone was introduced.
1960, Transistors
made it feasible to construct very small TVs. Sony now pioneered an 8-inch
transistorised TV set.
5 September� 1959,
Trunk call telephone dialling began in Britain, at Bristol.
5 December 1958. The
first STD telephone exchange in the UK opened.�
It was in Bristol, and was inaugurated by Queen
Elizabeth II calling up the Lord Provost of
Edinburgh.
11 December 1952. John Mulin and Wayne Johnson at the Bing Crosby Enterprises
Laboratory in Beverly Hills, California demonstrated the first video
recorder.
28 May 1951, RCA had sued the FCC in an effort to stop the
commencement of colour TV broadcasts in CBS format (see 11 July 1949), but this
day the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of CBS. However the delay in starting
colour broadcasts had been crucial; as in that time many more black and white
sets had been sold. When CBS did begin colour broadcasting on 25 June 1951,
over 10 million black and white sets could not receive its broadcasts. Viewer
numbers and advertising revenues were disappointing, and in October 1951 CBS
halted colour transmissions.
29 September� 1950,
The first automatic telephone answering machine was tested by the US Bell
Telephone |Company.
11 July 1949, In the USA, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began hearings regarding the possible
introduction of a colour TV service. There were three possible systems, the
Field Sequential Method of CBS, the Dot Sequential approach of RCA, and the
Line Sequential proposed by Color Television Incorporated (CTI). The CBS Field
System was the simplest, and produced better quality images than the other two
methods, so in 1950 the FCC adopted the CBS method. However the CBS approach
was incompatible with current black and white TV sets, whereas the other two
methods were not, see 28 May 1951.
25 August 1949. The UK began experiments with colour TV
transmission.
9 October 1947. The first radio-telephone call was made, from a
car to a plane, above Wimington, Delaware, USA. However radio contact between a person in a car and
a person on the ground had been made in 1922. This was at Brooklands motor circuit where a Morse message
was transmitted from a racing car at 80mph. The aerial was on large poles
propped up on the car.
14 June 1946. Death
of John Logie Baird, at Bexhill on Sea, Sussex, aged
58. He was born on 13 August 1888 at Helensburgh, Scotland. In 1926 he
demonstrated the first true television before the Royal Institution of
Great Britain, following developments on the first prototype in his laboratory
in Hastings in 1924. In 1939 Baird demonstrated colour television, and
had reportedly developed stereoscopic television by April 1946.
22 August 1940, Sir Oliver Lodge, pioneer of wireless telegraphy, died.
17 February 1938, John Logie Baird demonstrated a prototype colour television.
20 July 1937, Guglielmo Marconi, Italian scientist who pioneered the use of radio
communications, died in Rome, aged 63.
26 February 1935. Radar (Radio Detection And Ranging) was tested at
Daventry. Engineers had reported that passing aircraft distorted radio
transmissions. The BBC transmitter at Daventry was used this day by Robert Watson
Watt to detect a bomber 8 miles away at 10,000 feet. See 20/3/1934.
20/3/1934, Radar
was first demonstrated in Kiel Harbour, Germany. See 26 February 1935.
14 February 1933, The
world�s first speaking clock became available to telephone users in the Paris
area.
30 October 1928, Static pictures were first
transmitted by radio. Receivers required a special device called a Fultograph,
attached to the radio set. This utilised a revolving drum upon which a stylus
marked half-tone lines on special paper. The result was about as good as a
mediocre picture in an underfunded local newspaper, and the device never became
popular.
12 December 1927. The
first automatic telephone exchange
opened, in Holborn, London.
27 January 1926. Scottish inventor John Logie Baird,
aged 38, demonstrated the principle of transmitting moving images by radio. The
demonstration was to members of the Royal Institution, at his workshop in Soho,
London. He called this �television�.
30 October 1925. In his workshop in London, John Logie Baird achieved the first TV pictures using a dummy�s head. He then
persuaded a 15 year old office boy, William Taynton, to sit in front of the camera
to become the first live person captured on TV.
12
February 1924, Calvin Coolidge became the first US President
to deliver a speech on radio.
30 December 1924, Radio photographs
were first transmitted from Britain to the USA.
26 July 1923, John Logie Baird patented a system for
transmitting pictures by �mechanical television�. The transmitter and receiver
both had a spinning disc with 24 holes; pictures were sent by photoelectric
cells. The principle was the same as making repeated static images �move� by
rapidly flicking the pages of a book; the persistence of images in the human
eye gives the illusion of motion. Unfortunately the picture quality was
mediocre, the flickering gave viewers a headache, and the intense light needed
to film anything was exhausting for the cast.
2 August 1922. Death
of Alexander Graham Bell, aged 75, at his home near Baddock, Nova
Scotia. He was born on 3/3/1847 and
patented the telephone on 7/3/1876.
Many others had been working on the idea of sending speech by wire but Bell was
the first to succeed. With his assistant Thomas Walsop, Bell
began making improvements to the telegraph system,
and formed the Bell Telephone Company in 1872. Bell also invented the
photophone transmission of sound, precursor
of fibre-optics, as well as techniques of teaching speech to the deaf.
14 February 1922. Marconi began first regular radio broadcasts from
England (Writle, Essex). This invention had been patented by Marconi on 22
June 1896. See 14 December 1922.
29 July 1914, The first test call was made on the new transcontinental telephone
line between New York and San Francisco.
1912, The first automatic telephone exchange in London was
installed, with 480 lines.
1911, Advances
in telegraphic technology meant that a message could be sent from New York to
London in 30 seconds, at a cost just 0.5% of the 1866 level.
8 May 1911, A direct telephone link
was established between New York and Denver.
1909,
The first Strowger automatic telephone exchange in Europe was installed, in Munich,
Germany.
18 October 1907, Wireless telegraphy began
between the USA and Ireland.
1905, The Cathode Ray Tube was
first produced. It is a vacuum tube in which cathode rays can be projected onto
a fluorescent screen. It was later to be used for television.
31 October 1902, The Pacific Cable was completed at Suva.
12 December 1901. The
first transatlantic wireless message
(the letter �S�, three dots in Morse, was continually transmitted) was sent
from a164 foot aerial at Poldhu, Cornwall to Signal Hill, St John�s, Newfoundland,
a distance of 1,800 miles, where it was received by Marconi on an
aerial suspended from a kite.� Three
previous transmission attempts, in which the aerial had been raised by balloon,
were unsuccessful, thwarted by bad weather.
6 February 1901. Paris installed the first public telephones at railway stations.
1900, The first automatic
telephone exchange was installed in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It had 10,000
lines.
12 December 1896, Guigliemo Marconi gave his
first public demonstration of radio, at Tonybee Hall, east London.
2 June 1896, Marconi was granted patent no.12039 for his system of
communication using radio waves. The
maximum communications range was then about 12 miles.
9 January 1894, The first battery-powered telephone switchboard was installed in
Lexington, Massachusetts.
10/3/1891, US
undertaker Almon
Brown Strowger patented the Strowger
Switch, enabling automated dialling. He was motivated by the fact that the
wife of a rival undertaker worked at the local phone exchange, and was
diverting calls for his business to her husband.
18 October 1892, Telephone services began between New York and Chicago.
13 August 1889. The coin operated phone was
patented in the USA by William Gray
of Hartford, Connecticut.
13 August 1888. Birth of television pioneer John Logie
Baird in Helensburgh, Firth of Clyde, Scotland.
3 May 1888, Sir Charles
Bright, English telegraph engineer, died (born 8 June 1832).
1887, Heinrich Hertz proved the
existence of radio waves,
31 December 1887, US
telephone listings reached 200,000.
15 January 1880. The first telephone directory in Britain was
published by the London Telephone Company. It contained 255 entries.
6 September� 1879, The first British
telephone exchange opened, in Lombard Street, London.
21 February 1878, The first telephone directory was issued by
the New Haven Telephone Company, USA. It contained 50 subscribers.
14 January 1878. Queen Victoria was given a
demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell�s new invention, the telephone,
at Osborne House.
29 December 1877. Thomas Alva Edison made the first
recording of a human voice. He spoke Mary had a little lamb into his
phonograph. Edison was working to improve the efficiency of the telegraph
transmitter, and noticed that the machine gave off sounds resembling the spoken
word when played at high speed. He wondered if he could record a telephone
message. He attached the diaphragm of a telephone receiver to a needle, using
the needle to prick paper to record a message. He then progressed to using a
cylinder wrapped in tinfoil instead of paper, which succeeded in playing back
the nursery rhyme he had recorded. He patented this
device on 6 December 1877.
10/3/1876, Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first
telephone message to his assistant, from 5 Exeter Place, Boston, Massachusetts.
The words were �Come here Watson, I want you�.
7/3/1876. The
first telephone was patented by the American Alexander Graham�
Bell, who was born on 3/3/1847.
Bell
was just a few hours ahead of a similar patent by
Elisha Gray.
19 October 1875, Sir Charles
Wheatstone, English physicist who pioneered telegraphy, died in Paris.
25 April� 1874, Guglielmo Marconi, Italian scientist and radio pioneer, was born in
Bologna.
26 August 1873, Birth of Lee de Forest,
inventor of the Audion vacuum tube
which made broadcasting possible.
2 April� 1872, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, American inventor of the Morse Code for telegraphy,
died in New York City aged 80.
3/3/1847, The
inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, was born in Edinburgh.� He was
the son of a teacher of elocution.
24 May 1844. The inventor Samuel Morse sent
the first telegraph message, from his home in Washington to a friend in
Baltimore, 40 miles away. The message was �What hath God wrought�.
18 October 1842. The first telegraph cable was laid by Samuel Morse. It
ran from Governor�s Island to The Battery across New York Harbour, and lasted
only 24 hours; 200 feet of it was wrecked when a ship weighed anchor.
6 January 1838. Samuel Morse first publicly
demonstrated the telegraph.
He had begun work on this device in 1832.
8 June 1832, Sir Charles Bright, English telegraph
engineer, was born (died 3 May 1888).
6 February 1802, Sir Charles
Wheatstone, physicist and pioneer of telegraphy, was born in
Gloucester.
27 April� 1791, Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse Code, was born
in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Appendix�
Telegraph lines,
15 May 1965, New Zealand inaugurated the North-South Island undersea cable, 354
milkes across the Cook Strait.
16 October 1963, The trans-Atlantic cable USA to UK opened from Tickerton, New Jersey,
to Cornwall.
4 July 1903, The Pacific Cable opened between Honolulu and Manila.
1 January 1903, The Pacific Cable opened between Honolulu and San Francisco.
7 July 1896, Sir
John Pender, British cable pioneer, died in Footscray, Kent (born 10
September 1816).
1883, A
telegraph cable opened between the USA and Brazil.
1872, A
telegraph line opened connecting Adelaide with Port Darwin in Australia; it was
soon extended to link Australia with Java, India and Europe. London was now
connected to Melbourne.
1871, A
telegraph cable was laid from Vladivostok to Shanghai, Hong Kongt, and
Singapore, also serving Nagasaki.
18 February
1876. A direct telegraph link was set up
between Britain and New Zealand.
1869, The first
successful cable was laid between the USA and France. An earlier cable had been
laid in 1858 but ceased functioning after a few weeks.
27 July 1866, The Atlantic
Telegraph Cable was completed. This
connected London to New York
1861,
Western Union completed a telegraph line between New York and San Francisco.
This ended the Pony Express enterprise.
1851,
The first successful telegraph cable was laid under the English Channel,
between Dover and Calais. This connected London with Paris.
1848,
Telegraph communication opened between New York and Chicago.
10 September 1816, Sir John Pender,
British cable pioneer, was born (died 7 July 1896 in Footscray, Kent).